John Addington Symonds - Walt Whitman, a Study, 1893 by gnosisclassics

-WALT WHITMAN STUDY

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS

WITH TORI RAIT *AND FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON N MMO KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND

JOHN

MUCCCXCIH

PREFACE THIS study hardly needs an wanted

and

his

(1888),

for

works

introduction.

All that

Walt

Whitman

knowledge " the Complete

and " Walt Whitman"

Poems and Prose " by Richard

Bucke, M.D. (D. Mackay, Philadelphia, indebted

use

conversations with the poet,

and

Lancashire,

of Bolton, for

for

the permission

taken by himself in

DAVOS PLATZ, March 10, 1893.

890.

1883).

of Mr. J. the

Anderton,

from

the kindness

Maurice

Wallace,

of copious to

am of

notes

Dr. J. Johnston,

reproduce photographs

TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTICE OF WALT WHITMAN'S LIFE PAGK

BORN

1819 on

Long Island

His ancestry

Life in

Teaching school and journalism

at Brooklyn

Youth and

printing trade

Descriptions of his

Roamings through

early

manhood

boyhood

Learns the

New York

personal appearance and qualities the Southern and Western States

building Forms the first conception of " Grass Experiments in style First edition Its reception Emerson, Thoreau, Lincoln Walt in

Speculates

" Leaves of

of 1855

adheres to his original plan The Secession War Hospital work Severe illness in 1864 Paralysis in 1873 "Drum " " Taps and Democratic Vistas" Whitman and Secretary Harlan Whitman in the Attorney-General's office His

chronic bad health, owing to the stress of hospital- work, " Their value for him up Poverty " Specimen Days

lays

the understanding of his character

Camden, N.J. Growth friends Death in 1892

of his .

Protracted invalidism

fame as writer .

Devoted ,

STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN I

DIFFICULTY critical

dealing with Whitman's work by any purely method Controversies aroused by " Leaves of of

Grass "

The man and his personality Leadership of a and largeness of scale Impossibility reducing his doctrine to a system The main points of

cause of

Originality

his creed

TABLE OF CONTENTS

viii

PAGE Religion God immanent in the universe All faith and dogmas are provisional, relative in value Analysis of the poem " " Unrestricted faith and Chanting the Square Deific

imperturbable optimism

what way was Whitman a

His religion corresponds to the principles of

Christian?

modern science

The Cosmic Enthusiasm

for the individual

Its

importance 1

III

Personality or Self

The meaning

Intimate connection between

egotism for Whitman nature Paramount

man and

importance of a sound and self-reliant personality All things exist for the individual Body and soul The ideal of athletic selfhood

........

IV Amativeness and Adhesiveness

ex-Love of

comrades

Whitman's treatment

emotions

His relation to science

scientific

truths

sexuality

Love of women, love normal sexual

of [the

The

poet's

touch

Breadth of view

and marriage

Primitive conception Misconceptions to which his

doctrines have been exposed

The Love

of comrades

" Calamus

The

ideal of a friendship,

Novelty of this conception passionate, pure Question whether a new type Liability to misconstruction of chivalry be not involved in the doctrine of "Calamus"

fervid,

'.......

Political importance of comradeship " Calamus ground-stuff of

Speculations on the 67

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VI PAGB

The word En-Masse Equality of human beingsMiracles are all around us in the common world Whereever and whoever Heroism in daily life no less than in

Democracy

ancient fable aspect of

Democracy under the

myth

religious

a new creed

Questions

Democratic

regarding

Extension of the spheres of poetry and plastic beauty Middle-class prejudices and pettinesses The advent of

Art

the people

Critique

Whitman's firm

America and

culture

belief in

Europe

Divine Average "

...... The

Democracy

His attitude toward the past

VII

Whitman's

Attempts to create a new style preface to "Leaves of Grass" (1855)

start in literature

Analysis of the Qualities,

first

intellectual

democratic bard

and moral, demanded .

from the .

125

VIII-IX

Summary

How

Whitman's description of the poet

realise his

own

ideal

Weak

points in his

far did

method

His

permanently substantial qualities Question whether his writings are to be called poetry Passages proving his high rank as a creative

artist

139

X Return to the

Whitman Allusive and him The main thing is

difficulty of criticising

of presenting

metaphorical ways make people read him

this study of

Statement

what Whitman did

by the author

for himself

154

- C /

SHORT NOTICE OF THE WALT WHITMAN

WALT WHITMAN West

Hills,

was born

LIFE

in the year 1819, at

on Long Island,

New York

State.

He was

the second of six sons and two daughters children of Walter Whitman and his wife, Louisa

Van Velsor. The earliest known ancestor of the Whitman family was Abijah, born in England about 1560. His son, Zechariah, emigrated to Connecticut in the first half of the seventeenth century,

Long

and

his grandson,

The

Island.

yeomen

Joseph,

recorded under their name.

families of "

New

from one

The of

find

no arms

poet's

the

old

still,

mother

Dutch

York.

The Whitmans," writes Dr. Bucke,

and are

Whitmans were probably

in the old country, for

claimed descent

settled

solid,

tall,

were,

strong-framed, long-

lived race of men, moderate of speech, friendly,

fond of their land and

horses

and

cattle,

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xii

sluggish in their passions, but fearful

The Van

started."

when once

Velsors were also farmers,

the most part with horse-breeding. inherited on both sides a sound constitu-

occupied for

Walt

untainted blood, comeliness of person, wellbalanced emotions, and excellent moral principles. tion,

Long to

call

Island, it,

using

its

ancient

Walt loved

Panmanok,

Indian name,

about a hundred miles in length, and has been described in these words

" :

Shaped

like a fish,

plenty of sea- shore, the horizon boundless, the air fresh and healthy, the numerous bays and creeks

swarming with aquatic birds, the south-side meadows covered with salt hay, the soil generally tough, but affording numberless springs of the

sweetest water in the world."

Whitman's

Leaves of Grass

are

saturated

through and through with the inspirations and associations of his

breezy birthplace.

greater portion of his early boyhood

Yet the

was spent

Brooklyn, whither his father, a carpenter by trade, removed. He went to school until the age of thirteen,

and was then sent

appears, however, that to his

relatives

to learn printing.

Walt paid

upon the

Island.

frequent visits

early as

LIFE OF

WALT WHITMAN

xiii

sixteen, or thereabouts, he tramped the country, " teaching school," and began about this time to

write for newspapers and magazines. In 1839-40 he edited a weekly journal called the Long

Then he

Islander, at Huntingdon. in

New York

bining this

down

work of a compositor, comwith journalism and public speaking. to the

The next period of for his character

settled

fifteen years

man

absorbed the whole

was

decisive

of genius and citizen. life of New York and

Brooklyn into his own nature, exploring every quarter of the huge city, becoming acquainted

with classes

all

and

trades, consorting sorts of people.

familiarly with all

The enormous variety

of knowledge, the broad sympathies, the just perception of relative values in life, and the serene

wisdom which distinguish were gained at

this time.

" It

Leaves of Grass,"

may

be well, before

continuing this biographic sketch, to introduce here some descriptions of the man and his appearance, the impressions he

made on

and strangers, which have been preserved

by those who knew him. " Walt Whitman had a small and book-store

friends for us

printing-office

Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn,

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xiv

where the

after his return from the

Freeman newspaper, and continued

daily,

South he started

as weekly, then as

first

a year or

The super-

so.

opinion about him was that he was somewhat of an idler, a loafer,' but not in a bad ficial

sense.

earned

always

own

his

living.

him a very natural person. He wore cheap clothes, which were always particu-

thought plain,

Everybody knew him, every one

larly clean.

We all

almost liked him.

members of

other father (

of us (referring to the

his family,

and mother), long

brothers,

before

sisters,

he published

Leaves of Grass,' looked upon him as a

who was

make

always a good

mark

of late years, I think, he talks

indeed.

When

Leaves

he talked very

he did talk his conversation

was remarkably pointed, (

knew

somewhat more

in those early years (1849-' 5 4) little

He was

in the world.

the best I ever

listener,

man

and

attractive,

Grass

clear.

first

appeared

a great work, but that the man was thought His singular coolness was greater than the book. it

an especial excited

feature.

have

the least degree

swear but once.

He was

never

seen him

never heard him

quite grey at thirty.

LIFE OF

WALT WHITMAN

He had

a look of age in his youth, as he has a look of youth in his age." "

now

Walt's

appearance used to attract great attention from the passengers when he came on

board the boat.

He was

quite six feet in height

with the frame of a gladiator, a flowing grey beard mingled with the hairs on his broad, slightly bared chest.

In his well-laundried checked shirt-

with trousers frequently pushed into his bootflegs, his fine head covered with an immense

sleeves,

slouch black or light felt

hat, he

about with a naturally majestic

would walk

stride, a

model of ease and independence.

massive

hardly think his style of dress in those days was meant to be eccentric he was very antagonistic to all show or I

;

sham, and I fancy he merelv attired himself in what was handy, clean, economical, and comfort-

His marked appearance, however, obtained him a variety of callings in the minds of

able.

for

'Is he a passengers who did not know him. retired sea captain ?' some would ask an actor ? a military officer ? a clergyman ? Had he been a '

;

smuggler, or in the

Walt

slave

trade

I frequently repeated these

upon him.

To amuse

odd speculations

laughed until the tears ran when

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xvi

him that a very confidential observer had assured me he was crazy "

I once told

Pennsylvania Avenue or Seventh or Fourteenth Street, or perhaps of a Sunday along the

suburban road towards Hock Creek, or across on Arlington Heights,

the

shores

the

Potomac, you will meet moving along at a firm but moderate pace, a robust figure, six feet high,

costumed

in blue or grey,

with drab hat, broad

shirt collar, grey-white beard, full

and

curly,

with

red apple, blue eyes, and a look of animal health more indicative of hunting or boat-

face like a

ing than the department office or author's desk. Indeed, the subject of our item, in his verse, his

manners, and even in his philosophy, evidently draws from, and has reference to, the influences of sea and sky, and woods and prairies, with their laws,

and man

his

relations to them, while

neither the conventional parlour nor library has

upon him." Walt Whitman's dress was always extremely He usually wore in pleasant weather a plain.

cast its spells "

light- grey suit of

The only dress was that he had

good woollen

thing peculiar about his

cloth.

no necktie at any time, and always wore shirts

o 5

WALT WHITMAN

LIFE OF

xvii

with very large turn-down collars, the button at the neck some five or six inches lower than usual, so that the throat

and upper part of the breast

were exposed.

all

substantial,

other respects he dressed

neat,

common

way. he and about wore, him, Everything everything was always scrupulously clean. His clothes might plain,

(and often did) show signs of wear, or they might be torn or have holes worn in them but they ;

Indeed, an exquisite aroma of cleanliness has always been one of the special

never looked

soiled.

features of the

man

;

has always belonged to

whole body, his eating and drinking, his conversation, and no one could know him for an hour without seeing* o that it his clothes, his breath, his

penetrated his mind and life, and was in fact the expression of a purity which was physical as

and moral as much as physical." Lethargic during an interview, passive and receptive, an admirable listener, never in a hurry,

much

as moral,

with the

air

of one

who has

plenty of leisure,

always in perfect repose, simple and direct in manners, a lover of plain, common people, meeter '

of savage and gentlemen on equal terms,' temperate, chaste, sweet- breath'd, tender and affec-

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xviii

tionate,

copious

paternal soul

summery, and looks, he

with

friendship,

that shines in

large,

all

ways

by no means the rough certain people have been so willing to believe. Fastidious as a high caste Brahmin in his food and personal '

neatness and cleanliness,

well dressed,

with a

grey, open throat, a deep sympathetic voice, a kind, genial look, the impression he

makes upon

that of the best blood and breeding. reminds one of the first men, the beginners

you

a primitive outdoor look in the his

open

make

not so

;

has

much from being

from the texture and quality of

air as

a look as of the earth, the sea, or the

mountains, and

champion of

usually taken,' says a late

his cause,

for

some great mechanic,

or stevedore, or seaman, or grand labourer of one

kind or another.'

His physiognomy presents very

marked

features

of the

pattern, almost obsolete in

modern

features

true antique faces seen in

the strong, square bridge of his nose, his high arching brows, and the absence of all bulging in a face approximating in type to the statued Greek. He does not mean intellect his forehead

and one feels that he must merely, but life arrive at his results rather by sympathy and ;

LIFE OF

WALT WHITMAN

xix

absorption than by hard intellectual processes by the effluence of power rather than by direct

and "

total application of it."

For years

past,

thousands of people in

New

York, in Brooklyn, in Boston, in New Orleans, and latterly in Washington, have seen, even as I

saw two hours ago, tallying, one might say, the streets of our American cities, and fit to have for background and accessories their streaming populations and ample and rich facades, a man of a poet powerful and striking masculine beauty his

venerable in appearance

formed

;

large,

calm, superbly

oftenest clad in the careless, rough,

and

always picturesque costume of the common people resembling, and generally taken by strangers for ;

some great mechanic or stevedore, or seaman, or and grand labourer of one kind or another ;

passing

slowly in

this

guise,

with nonchalant

and haughty step along the pavement, with the The sunlight and shadows falling around him. dark sombrero he usually wears was, when

saw

him just now, the day being warm, held for the moment in his hand rich light an artist would ;

have

chosen,

majestic, large,

upon his Homeric, and lay

uncovered et

upon

head,

his strong

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

shoulders with the grandeur of ancient sculpture. I marked the countenance, serene, proud, cheerful,

florid,

wrinkles

;

grave

;

the brow seamed with noble

the features massive and handsome,

the eyebrows and eyelids especially showing that fulness of arch seldom seen save in the antique busts the flowing hair

with firm blue eyes

;

and

both very grey, and tempering with a look of age the youthful aspect of one who is but the simplicity and purity of his forty-five fleecy beard,

;

dress cheap and plain, but spotless, from falling

collar

faint fragrance

;

snowy

burnished boot, and exhaling the whole form surrounded with

manliness as with a nimbus, and breathing, in its perfect health and vigour, the august charm of the strong."

These notices are culled from various sources.^

The

repetition of the

strongest

evidence

personality.

same points in them is the of Whitman's remarkable

His health

in early

manhood seems

to have been absolutely perfect, and

mere

exist-

ence was perpetual joy. In 1847-48 he edited the Daily Eagle newspaper at Brooklyn, and in 1849 he set forth on * See Dr. Bucke's " Life of Walt

Whitman,"

pp. 25, 33, 43, 50, 57, go.

LIFE OF

WALT WHITMAN

xxi

an excursion through the middle, southern, and " He passed slowly," says Dr. western States. "

Pennsylvania and Virginia, crossed the Alleghany Mountains, took a steamBucke,

through

boat at Wheeling, descended by leisurely stages the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to

and

lived

there

some

time,

New

Orleans, edi-

employed

on a newspaper, the Crescent.''' On his return journey, he took a different route, reachtorially

ing

New York by way

Milwaukee,

Detroit,

of St.

the

Louis, Chicago,

great

and

Lakes,

Referring to these wanderings in a letter which he empowered me to publish (dated Niagara.

August 19, 1890), Whitman says: young manhood, mid-age, times south, been jolly bodily, and doubtless open to After this

sentence

there

"My &c.,

life,

have

criticism."

details

con-

cerning his domestic circumstances, which prove that, although he never married, his youth and

manhood were not passed without

episodes

passion and permanent attachment. It must be remembered that Whitman de-

pended on labour

for

his bread.

All through

these journey ings, then, he was brought into immediate contact with the people. The United

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xxii

and length and largeness, him, and he laid ample

States, in their breadth

known

became

foundations of experience

for

the work of his

prime.

down again

Brooklyn in 1851 he edited a newspaper called the Freeman, and also That proved, began to build and sell houses. Settling

But Walt

commercially, a paying speculation.

already

do in Grass

life

that he had something different to " than to make money. Leaves of

felt

was taking shape, and of

this

work he

says in the letter to myself already quoted " The writing and rounding off of Leaves of :

Grass

has been to

comfort below

all."

reason-for-being and

Some years

life's

elapsed before

he determined upon the form which this book should assume. He made many experiments,

wrote and re-wrote, testing his compositions by comparison with open nature, until at last he shaped that peculiar style which has been the subject of so

much

In 1855 the

first

criticism.

edition appeared at Brooklyn,

a thin quarto volume, containing twelve poems and the prose- preface, which ranks among his

most poetical performances.

Whitman

assisted

WALT WHITMAN OX THE WHARF AT CAMDEN,

NEW

JERSEY, JULY 1890.

LIFE OF

WALT WHITMAN

at the printing of the book.

xxiii

was greeted

with howls of execration and roars of laughter. o " When the book aroused such a tempest of

anger and condemnation everywhere," he told a " I went off to the east end of Long friend,

and spent the

Island,

late

the happiest of my Island and Peconic Bay.

fall

New York which

all

the

around Shelter

life

Then came back

with the confirmed resolution, from

never afterwards wavered, to go on with

poetic enterprise in

my own

as well as I could."

The

my it

summer and

way, and

finish

rest of his life "

inextricably interwoven with the

rounding-off of 'Leaves of Grass."

writing and Edition fol-

lowing edition, at irregular intervals, between 1855 an d 1892, added form and substance to the nucleus of the is is

most remarkable the

You

twelve poems.

in the history of this

What work

which the original conception of infinite extension and adjustment.

way

admitted

first

on looking through the slender volume of 1855, that the author already contemplated feel,

and that the extremely singular style and form of his poems were adapted to this additions,

method of treatment.

The growth of "Leaves

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xxiv

of Grass" might fancifully be compared to that of a stag's antlers, which put forth yearly snags or prongs,

stag of

until the

ten

attains

the

fulness of majestic maturity.

other eminent

Among

men

whom Whitman "

was Leaves of Grass addressed a copy of Emerson. He replied in a private letter of great cordiality,

which he never afterwards retracted even

modified,

though O

Whitman and

his

printers adopted the rather questionable measure of publishing it in the enlarged edition of 1856. It

must be inserted

here, for the part this letter

played in the history of Whitman's fame was important.

"CONCORD, MASS., July "

DEAR

SIR,

21, 1885.

not blind to the worth of '

the wonderful gift of Leaves of Grass.' I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.

happy happy.

lymph

very

making of what seems the Nature, as

it, great power makes us meets the demand I am always

in reading

in the

too

sterile

much handiwork

temperament were

and stingy or too

much

making our

LIFE OF

Western wits your in

free I

it.

fat

WALT WHITMAN

and mean.

you joy of have great joy

I give

and brave thought.

find incomparable things,

parably well, as they

must

of treatment which

xxv

be.

incom-

said

I find the courage

delights

us,

and which

large perception only can inspire. " I greet you at the beginning of a great career,

which yet must have had a long foreground someI rubbed my eyes a where, for such a start. to see if this

little,

sunbeam were no

but the solid sense of the book tainty.

It has the best merits

illusion

;

a sober cer-

namely, of

forti-

fying and encouraging. " I did not know, until I last night saw the book advertised in a newspaper, that I could trust

the "

name

as real

and available

for a post-office.

my benefactor, and have felt much like striking my tasks, and visiting New York to pay you my respects. "R W. EMERSON." I

wish to see

" Emerson, I may add, sent a copy of Leaves " of Grass to Carlyle, and presented one to Arthur Hugh Clough. Thoreau also began to

take notice of Whitman.

He was

puzzled by

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xxvi

" There are two or three the poet's audacities. pieces in the book which are disagreeable, to say " I do simply sensual." But he adds not believe that all the sermons, so-called, that

the least

;

have been preached in this land put together are equal to

greatly in him."

"He

for preaching.

was Thoreau,

And

too,

he ,

a MAN."

said

here I

from the windows of the White House is

rejoice

who

may recall remark on seeing Whitman

Democracy."

President Lincoln's

ought to

Napoleon,

may

" :

Well,

be remembered,

said the like to Goethe.

But the public were not of the same opinion The fury roused as Emerson, Thoreau, Lincoln. by the

edition

publishers,

who

1856 frightened Whitman's

refused to

sell

the

book.

meanwhile continued to compose chants in the same triumphant tone of self-complacent egotism, until

the

he had enough new material to produce enlarged and

beautifully

printed

edition

of 1860. If

Walt had written nothing

immortality as poet would

after this, his

have been secured, and his thoughts in their mass and detail would have been adequately expressed. Among the

LIFE OF

WALT WHITMAN

xxvii

most important matter added in the 1860 edition was the section entitled " Calamus." Copies soon found their way to England, and within the space of a few years, we were all

reading and discussing Walt. Walt's life as a creative poet was rudely interrupted by the national convulsion of the great Secession War. What happened to him at that period, determined his subsequent career

by condemning him which checked

to the long

;

and tedious

partly illness,

his marvellous vitality at its high-

partly by supplying him with themes for the sweetest and purest, if not the most impres-

tide

;

of his poems partly by consecrating and ennobling a personality w hich the public hitherto

sive,

;

This does not

misunderstood.

man needed

purification

mean

that Whit-

rehabilitation

account of anything that he had previously said, He remained the same or done, or published.

man, followed the track traced out at the beginning of his poet's life, abated no jot or tittle of the doctrine he life

felt called

on to

deliver.

But

his

during the war, his service in the cause of

sufferers, his practical exemplification of principles

in circumstances trying to the sturdiest

and the

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xxviii

bravest, the sacrifice of his health, the test of his religion

by unwearied

acts

of love and charity

and comradeship, forced society to recognise the essential worth and dignity of the poet, who had been condemned as a lover, a disseminator

New York

rowdy, a free of lawless and immoral

however prejudiced, can study Specimen Days the unaffected and sponparadoxes.

one,

taneous record of his experience without feeling that the grounds of common hostility to the author of Cliildren of Adam must be overhauled

and reconsidered.

Disciples of his doctrine appeal

with confidence to those pages, and say the man who lived and acted thus, was sound to the core :

and worthy of a patient hearing. How this came about, may be

briefly related.

Walt's brother George volunteered for the army of the north, and was wounded in the first

Walt Fredericksburg battle, December 1862. started for the camp upon the Rappahannock, nursed his brother through, and then went down to

Washington

in charge of

wounded Brooklyn

There he stayed, as an attendant in the military hospitals, bestowing the same care on men of both sides, and visiting the battle-fields. soldiers.

E w oi

g 3

w N 3 <

LIFE OF

WALT WHITMAN

xxix

energy would Those who wish to be informed,

superficial description

profit little.

must interrogate the

of his

which may be briefly designated the gospel of Walt Whitman's life.* For the rest, it is enough to say that

constant attendance upon soldiers

from

ing

those

horrible

crowded

illness in

his

He had

1864, recovered from

work

suffer-

wounds, gangrene, typhus, undermined his hospitals,

constitution.

magnificent

original sources,

at Washing-ton. o

it,

serious

and returned

But the seeds of

permanent disease had been sown. In February 1873, he was attacked by paralysis. During the next three years, his life hung on a thread, and the man, who had been so superbly vigorous,

was now condemned

invalidism.

who

have been privileged to read his private correspondence at this period, know with what continued cheerfulness and

he sustained courage o these trials. The public has access to notes published in his complete works.t The sweetness of his nature, his

ateness, *

for others, his affection-

and the sanguine

faith

which was

See Dr. Bucke's biography pp. 34-40, and " Specimen Days"

lected works of f

sympathy

Walt Whitman

Specimen Days/' after

1888),

p. 80.

from

p. 21 to p. 80.

his (col-

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xxx

piety,

were never

the situation

Poverty came to make more serious. Yet the real

altered.

still

beauty and goodness of the man never shone more Whitman clearly than in those overclouded days. did not

make

a full recovery.

on a broken wing until last

They stamped

and prophet with the ness.

Would

its close in

that

life

dragged

But the

1892.

his existence on the earth

twenty years of

were not wasted.

His

his

work

as poet

seal of indubitable genuineall

prophets, of Chelsea or

otherwhere, could boast a practical commentary so efficient and illuminative of their teaching.

The

outcome of Walt's experience in " Drum the Secession War was a book called Taps,"

poetical

which appeared

1865,

finest of his literary efforts, that

including the "

Lament

Lincoln," which opens with the phrase,

the door-yard bloomed."

lilacs last in

pieces

eloquence

for

When

All these

been

have

editions of

incorporated into the later The patriotic Leaves of Grass."

Whitman's masterpiece

"Democratic Yistas

prose,

(1871), obviously springs

and

heightened emotions stirred in him by the awful struggle he had

from

the

witnessed.

deepened

WALT WHITMAN

LIFE OF

Before the end of the war

Whitman

xxxi

received a

Department of the Interior at Soon after this appointment the

clerkship in the

Washington.

Chief Secretary, Mr. James Harlan, discharged " because he was the author of an indecent him, book."

Mr.

Harlan,

appears,

had used

his

liberty as chief of this State office to inspect his clerk's desk,

and found

an annotated copy

That happened in the Nine weeks after the event,

Leaves of Grass."

summer

of 1865.

Mr. William Douglas O'Connor, of Washington, who had learned to appreciate Walt as a friend,

and to admire him as a

writer, appeared before "

Good Gray the public with a vindication of the Poet." The attack on Secretary Harlan was scathing, the rhetoric tremendous.

And

in 1883

Mr. O'Connor returned to the assault with animosity,

Now

that

and

still

Whitman

fiercer

copious eloquence.^

lying cold and

still

beneath

the huge block of granite at Camden, we need not rake up the embers of that volcanic controversy. "

There

Leaves of Grass

are "

passages in which offend the ordinary

Both pieces are published man," pp. 71-132.

confessedly

in Dr.

Bucke's " Life of Walt Whit-

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xxxii

sense of propriety, and opinions on such points admit of difference. The fact, however, remains

that the book in question was out of print at the time of Harlan's action, and did not reappear until the year 1867.

Meanwhile Whitman had

obtained another clerkship in the

office

Attorney-General at Washington.

This, too, he

lost in the

summer

of 1874,

when he was

of the

ill

and

incapacitated from active service by paralysis at I have before me copies of letters Camden.

written to a dear friend at the time.

show a serene

indifference

to the

They

disaster,

and

a tranquil outlook over the immediate future. And yet no source of income remained to him. "

Leaves of Grass

would

call

was

not what

publishers

The book brought

property."

next to nothing. How Whitman bore the accumulated troubles of that period has been so well set forth by his friend

cannot omit the passage "As to the profits of

Dr. Bucke, that I

Leaves of Grass,' they had never been much, and now two men, in succession, in New York (T. O'K. and C. P. S.), in

whose hands the

sale of the book,

on commission,

had been placed, took advantage of

his helpless-

LIFE OF

WALT WHITMAN

xxxiii

ness to embezzle the amounts due (they calculated that death would soon settle the score and

rub

it out). So that, although I hardly ever heard him speak of them, I know that during

those four years

Walt Whitman had

to bear the

imminent prospect of death, great pain and at

ing

failure,

times,

and the

poverty, his poetic enterprise a face of the public either clouded

contempt or turned away with

If a

man

suffer-

can go such a ~ through o

indifference. trial

this

without despair or misanthropy if he can maintain a good heart, can preserve absolute self-

and as absolutely the respect, love, and admiration of the few who thoroughly know him

respect,

then he has given proofs sonal heroism of the

should say of per-

first order.

It was, perhaps,

needed that Walt Whitman should afford such proofs

;

at all events he has afforded them.

What

he was, how he

lived,

kept himself up during

those years, and

how

at the end partially re-

cuperated, '

well

Specimen Days/ that

by himself in would be mere imperti-

set it

forth

nence for any one else to attempt to retell the tale. The illness his friends looked upon with so

much dread has borne

fruit in

one of the sanest

SHORT NOTICE OF THE

xxxiv

and sweetest of books, the brightest and halest Diary of an Invalid ever written a book '

unique in being the expression of strength in the wisdom of weakness so bright infirmity

and translucent,

at once of the earth earthy,

and

sky and stars. Other books room require to be read with

spiritual as of the

of the

invalid's

down and the

the blinds drawn threshold lane,

;

and

but this sick man's chamber

by the

with the fresh

Little

priest

creek

sea-shore

on the is

the

always

and the open sky overhead." left to be related. Whitman's

air is

father died in the year 1855

mother died at

his

;

Camden (New Jersey) in 1873. To this town Whitman came during the first months of his paralytic his

own death

were

he remained

here

March

many

His

1892.

and comforted

cheered

attention

And

seizure.

last years

by the devoted

among whom

friends,

till

R. M. Bucke and Mr. Horace

Traubel,

Dr.

John

Burroughs and Mrs. Gilchrist, F. Warren Fritzinger and Mrs. Davis ought to be especially

He had

commemorated. feeling

that

making way.

the

Leaves of Grass It

had been

satisfaction "

partially

last

was

re-issued

LIFE OF in

WALT WHITMAN

England by W. M.

Rossetti,

school of hearty admirers

Knortz and

and an English

grew up

Selections were translated into

Rolleston.

xxxv

in Lancashire.

German by Karl French

critics de-

voted serious studies to

its literary qualities

philosophical teaching.*

And what was

and

better

than fame, affection of the strongest, tenderest, and purest quality attended him from staunch

and noble men His work

whom

he could love and honour.

lives after him.

It is of a kind

the world will not willingly let

which

die.

While correcting these proofs, I notice that a literary Society Padua is going at their next meeting to discuss the poem of Walt Whitman " (Venice, March 20, 1893).

; '

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

THE world has lost another good and Walt Whitman died in March 1892

New

Jersey, U.S.A., after a lingering

illness,

which terminated

great man, at

Camden, and painful

in distressing debility,

borne by him with serenity and fortitude. spiritual force has been resumed through

A his

death into the occult stock of universal energy

and

too early as yet to

account of his a

new way

sum up any

;

final

achievement as the teacher of

of regarding

life,

democratic religion, and the

the prophet of a poet of a revolu-

tionary school.

extremely baffling to have already said in print that " speaking about him is like speaking about

Whitman, indeed,

criticism.

the universe."

meant

this to be appreciative,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

and comprehensiveness of the man's nature are concerned. But the

in so far as the largeness

saying has, like the famous Delphian knife, a double handle. Not merely because he is large and comprehensive, but because he is intangible, elusive, at first sight

some sense

formless, does

Whitman

universe and defy critical analysis. The peculiar surroundings of the his lifetime rendered

it difficult

with regard to him.

an attitude of

and

self-contradictory,

resemble the

man

during

to be impartial

Assuming from the

indifference

public

first

opinion,

challenging conventionalities, and quietly ignoring customary prejudice, he was exposed at

the beginning of his career to unmerited insults Not only did critics and a petty persecution.

and cultivated persons

fling stones at

him

;

but

even a Minister of State thought it his duty to deprive him of a modest office which he held. This opposition was far from abating his courage or altering the calm of his essentially masculine nature.

But

excited the pugnacious instincts

of those few devoted followers and disciples who had gathered round him. Whitman began to be

enveloped in a

dust of

controversy

indecent

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

abuse upon the one hand, extravagant laudation on the other outrage and depreciation, retaliated

claque.

by what the French Sane criticism found

call

reclame and

necessary to feeling con-

stand aloof from the ignoble fray fident that Whitman's worth would obtain due ;

and ultimate

recognition

;

Johnson used to say, that

knowing, as Sam no man is written

up or down except by himself"; dreading

lest

the sterling qualities of such magnificent work should be brought into discredit by clamorous

and undiscriminating advocacy. Whitman's own personality augmented these difficulties. No one was ever more generous and

frank

nature,

differences of opinion,

ready to

more tolerant of

criticism.

the same time he displayed a desire to diffuse his doctrines, an eagerness to be acknowledged

craved for responsive affection in the audience to whom he appealed, and

in his lifetime.

regarded his literary teaching in the light of a He acted like one who did not trust cause. to the certainty of the eventual success of genius.

collected

and distributed

trifling panegyrics of himself, culled from the holes and corners of

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

He showed

American journalism.

small sense

of proportion in criticism, and seemed to value people by the amount of personal zeal they dis-

This

played in the propagation of his views.

was somewhat grotesquely exhibited in table-talk at a banquet held in honour of

spirit

his

The kindness of

his seventy-second birthday.*

his

words about

have touched

his friends

and followers must

who were

concerned, as much,

all

When

I hope, as they touched me.

I read

what

recognised the acumen of his 1 insight into several points of my character. felt that probably my name would survive in

he said of me,

those unpremeditated remarks long after

Yet

writings shall have been forgotten.

my own I could

not help being amused by one sentence, which

gave a special flavour to thing about Symonds is

He was

quite willing

Whitman, that

his praise

" :

The best

his splendid aspiration.

leap

into the gulf."

as the context proves, did not

Symonds

Quiiitus

mean

Curtius, open

undertake a job of self-devotion at a moment's notice. He was only testing me by the standard * See

Magazine.

Walt Whitman's Birthday, May

31,

1891,

Lippincolt's;

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

of discipleship, which he applied to each and all of his acquaintances in turn. Early in the " " I accepted the Leaves of Grass history of book, and staked

open avowal

its

what

That

reputation upon an indifferent sterling merit

critical

brother-students thought about

it.

no topic for eulogy certainly none which need have been dwelt upon by Whitman. It

may

be false delicacy,

of effete blood.

culture,

But

this note in

may

be the result

be feudalism in

I confess that I

Whitman and

may

have always found

his circle difficult to

keep in tune with. As Ernest Renan said of Victor Hugo, writing on the day after his death " Who would now :

interrogate the general upon the subject of the

manoeuvres he employed, the sacrifices which were the conditions of his success ? The general is

forced to be egotistic.

the

army

;

and a

glaring exhibition of personality, unpardonable in the rest of men, is imposed on him by circumstances.

Hugo (and

in like

had become a symbol, a

manner Whitman)

principle,

an affirmation,

the affirmation of idealism and emancipated art. He owed the whole of himself to his own religion.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

He was

like a god,

who had

to be his

own high

His lofty and vigorous nature lent itself to the playing of this part, which would have

priest.

been unbearable to one of different instinct

mighty him. world.

good

came

to manifestation through

He was like the main-spring of a spiritual He could not find the time to have taste

;

would have been of

taste, moreover,

service to him."

There

which Renan wrote ferred

calibre.

by me from

;

little

irony in everything and these sentences (transis

his panegyric

Hugo

To dispense steeped in irony. with taste, or the refinements of gentle feelings,

Whitman) is

are

what no man, not even the

greatest,

can do

with impunity. No general, not even Napoleon, no founder, not even Christ was great enough for that.

Whitman then appeared omnivorous

praise, indiscriminative as to its quality, lacking

the repose which belongs to the highest type of Instead of leaving his fame and greatness. influence to the operation

of natural laws, he

encouraged the claque and the reclame which I have pointed out as prejudicial.

and have long regarded remind the world of many

I sincerely regard him,

him, as a

man

born to

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

important and neglected truths, to flash the light of authentic inspiration upon many dark and puzzling questions, and to do so with the force of admirable courage, flawless candour. But the

pushing his gospel and advertising his philosophy, put a severe strain on

ways he chose patience.

for

Were Buddha,

Socrates,

Christ,

up around them by third-rate cities, and in

interested in the dust stirred

second-rate persons, in

more than

fifth-rate literature

In addition to what I have been advancing upon the difficulty of dealing fairly with Whitman passing now to higher and more serious planes of reflection his very originunique qualities ality, his individuality, the

during his lifetime

which made him

so remarkable a master, render

the task of seizing and formulating the essential truth about him, both as teacher and as poet, well-nigh

impracticable

Those of us who believe that his

feel his

the

present

time.

influence most deeply,

work has secured

attention,

and

hope ardently that its import will be gradually absorbed and assimilated, so that in course of time a living image of himself shall exist in thousands, and the exposition be rendered easy.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Like Nature, he seemed, at

to be a

first sight,

mass of contradictions and insoluble problems, of potent stuffs irreducible by any known method of

analysis.

that

all

Critics, less

feel

him,

submit to his

But we

be enamoured of his charm.

impact,

knew

could

was impossible

implied

saddened, and

task,

judged

to find a formula for

the two letters

made shy by

W. W.

their thank-

better to leave

him

to his

predestined working in the sphere of thought, feeling assured that, like Nature, he could take care of himself.

How gences

ill

fared

their

with even superior

efforts

evaluate

intelli-

W. W.

by two examples. When " Songs before Sunrise were re-issued in 1883, Mr. Swinburne suffered an eloquent ode " To might be

illustrated

Walt Whitman

America

be reprinted. It contains the following impassioned stanza in

strong-winged soul with prophetic Lips hot with the bloodbeats of song,

With tremor of heartstrings magnetic, With thoughts as thunders in throng, With consonant ardours of chords That pierce men's souls as with swords

And

hale

them hearing

along.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

reading this ode, and especially the lines just quoted, I, for my part, felt that true things had here been said regarding Whitman, but with rather more of the claque and the reclame flavour

than

judged

desirable.

appreciated the

bution

poem

Still,

welcomed and

as a noteworthy contri-

the tradition gradually forming in Sad then was my support of Whitman's credit. to

disappointment to discover, before the eighties were over (that is within seven years of this dithyrambic blessing), that Mr. Swinburne was cursing

Whitman by

muse of

stigmatising the

gods in prose, and Leaves of Grass," as

all his

a drunken apple-woman reeling in a gutter. I forget the exact verbiage of the scurrility and ;

do not impute the change of attitude implied in

it,

much

to Mr. Swinburne's levity, as to the

bewilderment created in his mind by Whitman's incongruities.

The next instance

that of a

lavish of the hyperboles of praise

Mr. Swinburne

is.

critic

not so

and blame as

friend Mr. R. L. Steven-

son once published a constrained and measured study of Walt Whitman, which struck some of those

who read

as frigidly appreciative.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

subsequently told me that he had first opened upon the key-note of a glowing panegyric, but felt the pompous absurdity of its exaggeration.

began again, subduing the whole tone of

When the essay was finished the composition. in this second style, he became conscious that misrepresented his own enthusiasm for the teacher who at a critical moment of his youthful life had helped him to discover the right line it

of conduct.

may not unfairly be accused by Whitman of having been lukewarm

I feel that I

the school of

toward him this

in his lifetime,

memorial

strain.

notice

and of having started a somewhat carping

Here, as elsewhere, however,

single desire to live in the

tMngs^ so relation

far

may

the Whole.

be I

Whole, and possible,

_to__see

their

sure, moreover,

Whitman's genial and manly spirit, so lately resumed into the sum of things, approves that

of any to

earnest

show what

attempt on his

his relative value

is.

disciple's

part

one, not

Buddha, not Socrates, not Christ, has an absolute True criticism dares not forget that value.

"the eternal things," "the abiding relations"

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

of the universe, extend around, above us

and environing

sustaining

all,

how-

individualities

ever potent.

In 1889 I allowed the following words of mine to be circulated in a collection of what may be called testimonials to the bard of "

Leaves of Grass,' which

of twenty-five, influenced

any other book has more

than Plato,

impossible for

I first read at the

done,

age more perhaps than

except

the Bible

more than Goethe.

to speak critically of

so deeply entered into the fibre

Camden

;

what has

and marrow of

being."

The

time has

now

come

for

attempting

some explanation of what I meant. Whitman threw clear light upon truths which I had but dimly perceived, and gave me the courage of opinions previously held with some timidity and shyness. I

will

try

several headings.

mised that

express It

Whitman

influence

under

should, however, be

pre-

does not lend himself to

systematic exposition.

his

says emphatically

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

charge you, too, for ever, reject those me for I cannot expound myself ;

I charge

you that there be no theory or school founded out

me;

I charge

who would expound

you to leave

all free,

as I have left all free.

useless to extract a coherent

scheme of

thought from his voluminous writings. He tells us himself that he is full of contradictions, that his

do as much harm as good,

precepts will

that he desires to " tally the broadcast doings of the day and the night." But though he

not be reducible to system, we can trace an order in his ideas. First comes religion, or o

may

the concept of the universe then personality, or the sense of self and sex then love, diverging ;

;

and comradely emotions

into the amative

democracy, or the theory of brotherhood.

The world,

part of the world,

man

to himself alone, love

to his happiness

Whitman's

creed,

;

then

human equality and man as an essential

as of prime importance

and

liberty as necessary

these are the constituents of

WILL take Religion

first.

Ernest Renan, in

the paper from which I have quoted, written

immediately after Victor Hugo's death, uttered some remarks about the central thought of that great poet, which

Whitman.

side,

remain in ignorance.

what

be used as text and in-

have to say about Walt "Is he spiritualist ? Is he mate-

troduction for

rialist

may

he does

know what

not

Upon

the one

abstraction

is.

His principal devotion, I might say the only one, is for two or three eminent realities, such as

Paris,

souls,

Napoleon,

he abides

Tertullian's.

the

People.

Concerning

same conception

believes that he can see them,

touch them.

Immortality, in his idea, is not the mere immortality of thought. At the same

time he

The

the

highest

degree

idealist^

penetrates matter, constitutes the essence and the reason of its being. idea,

for

him,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

His God

not the

God

concealed of Spinoza, foreign to the evolution of the universe; it is a God to whom it may be useless to address is

whom

prayer, but

the abysm of the Gnostics. was passed under the puissant pre-

of trembling.

His

he worshipped with a kind

life

occupation of a living

infinite,

which embraced

him, surged around and from him on all sides and portions of his being, and in the bosom of

which

was sweet

him to

lose himself

and

lose his reason."

Here we have a

fine description of a

great

spirit, which offered analogies to Whitman's, but which differed in some essential particulars. By

commenting upon this passage I will try to bring into relief what seems to me to have been Whitman's fundamental conception of the universe and man's relation to it of religion in 'short.

Whether he was a

spiritualist or a materialist

need no more be discussed in his case than in that of Victor Hugo.

Those who conceive

cosmic unity at all, contemplate spirit and matter as the x and y of one inscrutable, yet only real, existence.

Whitman.

This was undoubtedly the attitude of Every detail of the world endowed

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

with shape, contained for him God, was a microcosm of the whole, an apparent and with

life,

ever-recurring

miracle.

Upon

abstractions

refused to dwell, because (without having perhaps

appropriated the Hegelian philosophy) he regarded the concrete as the ultimate reality, the self- effectuation of the Idea, while the abstract

For Whitman, as for Hugo, two or three immense facts were the main objects of his enthusiasm. We may de-

remains mere gaping

them

scribe

void.

as America, Self,

Whether Hugo

really held

crete notion of the soul, as

Sex, the People.

Tertullian's con-

Kenan puts

it,

I will

Whitman certainly did not pause to debate. For him Soul was the most etherealised, not. the least palpable and visible, yet the most formative and durable element in everything that

clung to the belief in immortality. Yet he never attempted to define what immortality His strongest faith in the survival of will be. is.

the these

individual

expressed

phrases

My foot is

tenoned and mortised in granite,

I laugh at

what you

And

call dissolution,

know the amplitude

of time.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

know

how

not

with you

;

came

Whitman's God,

and I know not where

God

the

I go

attributed

to j

Goethe's God,

Hugo,

of you,

but I know I came well, and shall go well.

immanent

in the

universe.

God

dwells within

and moves the world and moulds,

Himself and Nature in one form enfolds

Thus

all

Him, and

that lives in

;

breathes, and

is,

Shall ne'er His puissance, ne'er His spirit miss.

Yet

God was not

this

trembling' adoration.

Me I hear

him the

Rather he says

object of :

imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature.

and behold God

not in the

Nor do

for

in every object, yet understand

God

least,

I understand

who

there can be more wonderful than

myself.

greater to one than one's Nor again was the supreme being the self is. abysm of the Gnostics for his soul, but the ever

Nothing, not God,

which everywhere exists around us, which we exist, which we help to constitute,

present in

fact,

nearer and more essential to us than aught else. To pray to such a God is of course useless,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

except in the sense of committing ourselves to him, as the bird gives itself to the air, the wave rocks upon the vast profound it ruffles, the ray of light floats undulating through illimitable

wave, and sunbeam, just like the soul of man, being each a distinct and indis-

ether

bird,

pensable part of that totality in which and moves and has its being.

lives

In Whitman's thought, as in that of Bruno, Spinoza, Goethe, there is no separation of God

from the Universe.

Therefore what

said about

the latter, holds good of the former. In spite of the reality of both to our soul, both are

unknown and unknowable same

true of Life and Death.

The

in their essence.

Therefore

all

forms of religions, faiths, metaphysics, cosmologies, remain in the region of mere guesses, and possess no more than a relative value for the understanding. I heard

Heard It

what was

said of the universe

and heard

;

thousand years ; but is that goes,

of several

middling well as far as

Magnifying and applying come

all

Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,

I 1

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Lithographing Kronos,

grandson

Zeus

his

son,

and

Hercules his

;

Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a

the

leaf,

crucifix engraved,

With

Odin, and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and every idol and

image

;

Taking them

all

for

what they are worth, and not a cent

more; Admitting they were

alive

Accepting the rough

deific

and did the work sketches to

bestowing them freely on each

self

This passage, though

fill

of their days;

out better in my-

man and woman I

may sound

see.

irreverent,

nothing more than an expression of the belief that theology is the subject of comparative study,

and has

to be considered from the point of view

of historical development.

There

finality

any creed, nor can there be, because man's place in the universe is but a speck of cloud in in

an illimitable sky, a fragment of straw afloat upon a boundless ocean. This does not prevent

what Whitman

calls religion

that

to say, a

sturdy confidence in the security of the whole

scheme of things, a sense_of universal

life

and

of our indestructible participation in the same

from being

for

human

and

facts

Him the most important of qualities.

all

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN I say the whole earth, and

all

the stars in the sky, are for

Religion's sake.

I say

no man has ever yet been half devout enough,

None has ever yet adored or worshipped half enough, None has begun to think how divine he himself is, certain the future

how

is.

I say that the real and permanent grandeur of These States must be their religion ;

Otherwise there

real

and permanent grandeur

;

(Nor character, nor life worthy the name, without Religion Nor land, nor man or woman, without Religion).

;

The Religion of which he speaks might be defined as a recognition of divinity in

all

things.

a profound belief in the eternity of Spirit underlying all appearances, phenomena, tranIt

sitions of

birth

dissolution.

Its

(

and death, development, and essence is an imperturbable

optimism, or what he elsewhere designates as "

unrestricted faith."

apparent irrationality

we perceive it, The origin of evil

or contradictions in the world as

ought to shake this faith. offers no problem. If God, as you theologians aver, made the world, then God made evil as well as good.

There

is 110

way

yourselves from the corollaries theorem. You say, indeed, that

of extricating of

your

God made

own the

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

world out of nothing; and that, having made it, God remains apart from it and independent.

But what do you mean by nothing, when there can be nothing at to

conceive of

all

God

but in

God ?

any way,

impossible

least of all in

way which your metaphysic forces on the human mind, and at the same time to conceive

the

which

of something

God made

Therefore

part of God. the world out of himself, is

not

and everything in the world, what we call [bad as well as what we he

or rather

the world

;

good, the ugly as well as the beautiful to our eyes, the painful as well as the pleasurable call

our senses,

There

God.

method of eluding

this

posit matter as outside

argument,

no possible unless you

God and independent

him, in which case the Universe contains two

But that

Gods.

what you theologians are

anxious to deny. It must not be imagined that Whitman uses this language. On the contrary, he says to

mankind

Be not For

who am

God.

curious about each,

curious about God,

not curious about

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

refuses to discuss

feels to

Why

something

each

God

moment then of men and women

I find letters

sign'd

I leave I

;

face in the glass

And

better than this day

each hour of the twenty-four, and

In the faces

and formulate what he

be in everything around him.

should I wish to see

I see

God, and in

my own

;

from God drop't in the

and every

street

otoe

by God's name,

them where they

are, for I

know

that wheresoe'er

Others will punctually come for ever and ever.

though he does not employ irrefutable arguments against orthodox theology, these are implied in the position of unrestricted faith and But,

In imperturbable optimism which he assumes. like manner, though he will not argue with materialism, he says to

modern

science

All your

theories of the universe lead inevitably to the conclusion that one spiritual vitality pervades the

whole.

The world,

you present

to our reason,

must be thought, because we think the world, because the order of the world

uniform, intel-

to our understanding, progressing by ascertainable processes of evolution. /Everything in the world is the thought of some spirit or ligible

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

soul, for

which the name of God

a convenient

symbol. Therefore, he

make the poem

able to proclaim evil

commemorate that part

also

also.

am myself just as much evil as good, and And I say there is in fact no evil there

(Or

is,

I say it is just as

nation

is.

important to you, to the

land, or to me, as anything else).

conformity with this view of things, he includes Satan, the genius of revolt, dissatiss

strict

discord,

faction,

One

his conception of "

the Square Deific," is, in not that Divine Ideal

fact,

;

the world-soul

describe

but that the

its

own

Chanting an analysis of the

men may presume as

intellect of

the law of

divinity.

of his most remarkable poems,

ontologically

to is,

man, anthropomorphic

nature, imagines this to

be endowed with spiritual qualities analogous to those is

recognises in

itself.

what man thinks and

ing the

outward "

from

The Square

feels,

himself,

when

his

Deific

proceed-

personality,

Whitman's fundamental

creed, he

formulates his impressions of the universal spirit. The Square is not Deity, because we can predicate

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

nothing about God. It is Deific, or God-making, because we are compelled to make God in our image. o

This

so important for the understand-

poem

we must examine

ing of Whitman's thought that it

What

closely.

then, are the four

main

conceptions which he considers necessary to the Divine Idea ? The first is that of / inexorable

This gives birth to deities like Jehovah, Brahma, Kronos, Earth. destiny,

implacable_fact.

Time,

Unpersuadable,

old,

modern

Aged beyond computation, mighty laws that man's let

tion, the

But

yet

judgments,

ever new, ever with those

rolling,

Relentless, I forgive

Therefore

as any,

relentless, executing righteous

life

no man

whoever

;

none expect mercy.

Have the

appointed days mercy

as the seasons

I will have

sins dies

seasons gravita-

No more

and gravitation, and as

all

have

the appointed

days that forgive not, I dispense from this side judgments inexorable without the least remorse.

Thus the

first

four-square Idea

and fundamental

of the

Law, that which science demon-

strates.

The second conception

solation,

healing,

.side

affection.

that of con-

It creates

the Lord Christ, Hermes, Hercules.

deities

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Many

times have I been rejected, taunted, put in prison, and and many times shall be~again,

crucified,

All the world have I given up for sisters' sake, for the soul's sake,

Wending my way through with the kiss of

For I

and

affection,

dear brothers' and

the homes of men, rich or poor,

affection,

the cheer-bringing God, with hope

all-enclosing charity.

The second

side of the square appears to contra-

and compensate the first, yet it eternal and indispensable to the idea. dict

But

charity has no death

wisdom

dies not, neither

early nor late, And my sweet love bequeathed here and elsewhere never

The

third conception

less

dies.

that of revolt, of Satan.

Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt,

Comrade

of criminals, brother of slaves,

Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorant,

With Sudra

my Lifted

face

and worn brow,

black, but in the depths of

heart, proud as any,

now and always

against whoever scorning assumes to

rule me.

Satan,

less eternal,

less

indispensable

Law and

Charity, but seeming " to contradict both, will remain permanent here

to the idea than

from

side,

equal with any, real as any."

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN In other words, the

human mind cannot

project

a spiritual world where strife shall not reign as well as love, and both be antagonistic to destiny.

Charity and Hatred are alike needed for organic life. Law alone would congeal the universe

But now appears the fourth conception, which, according to Whitman's feeling of the world, unites and fuses law, what love, revolt in a more ethereal essence an inert

into

crystal.

" Life of Life "the true Shelley phrased the spirituality, the essential vitality of the vast

complex.

a strange

whim

of fancy, while

he adopts the Jffoly Ghost of Christian theology, Whitman uses the female gender. His phrase "

Santa Spirita," instead of " Sanctus SpiriIn dealing with Whitman's language, the tus." is

critic

has,

such

cases, either to credit

him

with an esoteric meaning or to suppose that he was regardless of grammar and usage. Did he intend to suggest that the Anima Mundi, which forms the fourth and resultant concept of his Square Deific, possesses an essential femininity

Goethe's to

Was

he casting a "

Ewig-Weibliches

repudiate

side-glance I

that explanation of this

inclined "

Santa

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Spirita."

treat of

human

shall see that

and

loves

when he comes

passions, the female

regarded as the fundamental element of sex and sexual attraction, the male as the ethereal

and

all

pervasive

element

Therefore, in the present

free

instance,

affection.

take the

Santa Spirita to be a variation on phrase the old theme of the Holy Ghost, introduced with sensitive aesthetic tact, but with more ''

than

disregard for accidence, in order to shadow forth a frail and fugitive,

Emperor

Sigismund's

but eminently

vital, conception.

man's actual words must be mysticism

far too

subtle

repeated.

WhitTheir

abridgment or

for

engaged in trying once again to express what Bruno thought, what throbs description.

in the heart of those of us

marries with Religion

who

feel

that Science

namely, that there

point beyond Law, Love and Hatred, where the harmony we dimly guess, on which our faith

founded, merges in eternal, concrete, spiritual His unrestricted faith, his imperenergy. turbable optimism, transcends the sphere of is

law,

charity,

revolt.

Jehovah,

Jesus,

Satan,

find the resolution of their discord, the atone-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN ment of

their

in (that

contradiction,

unity of

can only be dimly apprehended by our mortal minds^ but upon which our confidence as creatures of the total scheme the universe which

Spirita."

Shelley, as I

of Life."

Under

name, he is

and grounded.

fixed

calls

"Santa

noted, called

Life

name, under any

this or that

connotes the individual's conviction that

inviolable

factor

the

universal

order, unable to escape from its decrees, incapable

of dispensing with the consolation of the heart, condemned to suffer and rebel, yet conscious

that the music entirety

of the whole,

would

him,

justify

heard in his

its

separate

striving. Santa Spirita, breather,

Beyond the

life,

light, lighter

Beyond the flames of

than

light,

hell, joyous,

leaping easily above hell,

Beyond Paradise, perfumed solely with my own perfume, Including all life on earth, touching, including God, including Saviour and Satan, Ethereal, pervading

were God Essence of

all,

(for

without

me what

were

all?

what

forms,

life

the real

identities,

permanent,

positive, (namely the unseen), Life of the great round world, the sun and stars, and of man, I,

the general soul,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Here the square Breathe

With us.

finishing, the solid, I the

most

solid,

breath also through these songs.

this blast of mysticism,

But the mysticism

the conditions under which orable law, tender

Whitman

leaves

carefully adapted to

we have

and recurrent

to live

charities,

;

inex-

burning

black-hearted no less recurrent revolts against these are law, heart-broken negations of love

our permanent visible relations to the scheme of But there is a fourth relation, tranthings.

scending and including these, beyond them, and above them, beneath them, and embracing

them, which gives the

human

heart the hope of

final reconciliation to its destiny.

Whitman,

his imperturbable optimism, his unrestricted faith,

declares that this fourth

and

final relation is

one which souls are bound to stand by. Here find the truth, "the solid, the most solid."

What

looks

ethereal and

evanescent,

the

what

seems to be a dream of perfection, a vision of

harmony, constitutes the pith and substance, the fibre and the soul, the irrefragable and unremovable ground-work of the whole. unrealised

The most

spiritual, the least tangible, the

irreducible to terms of actual experience,

most is

the

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN ultimate reality, unifying

what he means by That

cosmos.

man

was,

extracts.

when speaking

soul,

it.

how

That

things.

the man's religion

he bids us to accept

How much

all

"By

little

;

of the

and as such,

faith shall

live."

of a Christian Whit-

be judged from the foregoing In the technical sense of that word, as

can

understood by existing Churches, he was clearly But if the Christianity of not a Christian. Christ, as apart from that

of Christendom, be then he fully shared its spirit. He intended, a tender for reverence retained Jesus, whom he "

called

the Lord Christ," and to

corded the title of "divine."

whom

It is the

he ac-

beauty of

Christ's character, his brotherhood, his religion of love,

the sacredness of his mission

capable of being imitated enthrals the heart of the man

still

;

a mission this

which

not the fable of

his miraculous nativity, nor the Miltonic

scheme

of vicarious redemption. Recall Christ, brother of rejected persons felons, idiots,

Then life in

again,

and

of insane

Galilee, that

brother of slaves,

and diseased persons.

the charm of that nomadic "

sweet story of

old," as the

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

children's

hymn

expressed

it,

which

attracts

him. Walking the

How yet,

old hills of Judaea with the beautiful gentle

God

side.

near to Kenan's "doux Galileen," and

in spirit,

how

far closer to

the children's

In this mood of loving comradeship with Christ, the brother of rejected persons, the sufferer for others, the gentle God,

hymn,

that phrase

Whitman wrote Crucified," familiarity.

that address,

To Him that was

which has been challenged for undue In the same mood, he spoke those

strong and sustaining words, die,"

To one

shortly to

against which no cavil can be raised.

the same mood, he expressed his brotherhood for persons whom other men misuse and cast aside like pestilent rags, in the lines called

Dead-House." Christ, he

The City

by the spirit of this health and manhood down

Inspired

laid his

as a willing sacrifice for the sick and soldiers of the great

American War.

wounded

How much

how little of a real follower after Christ Whitman was, can be judged from these things. or

Still,

was not Whitman's vocation

deliberate intention

or his

shore up tottering his-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

any of its dogmatic forms.

torical Christianity in

he says,

too,"

one

" egotistic proclamations

and

;

his

apparently

I too, following

many,

by many, inaugurate a Heligion go to the wars." We have seen what

folio w'd

I too,

was the

essence

of that

religion,

its

imper-

turbable optimism jmd um;estric1ted, faith. might call it the Cosmic Enthusiasm, and hail it

as the

dawn

of a

new

spiritual day.

But

any more than it was Mohammedanism or Buddhism, or Graeco-Roman Paganism. It has a character and essence of

was not

Christianity,

own, from which the notions of personal Deity, of rewards and punishments for the individual, of salvation and damnation, of heaven its

and

have been purged away. of Whitman, his inner wisdom, hell,

The

secret

consists

attaining .an attitude of confidence, a sense of security, by depending on the great thought of

things including our particular selves are attached by an indubitable This religion correlink of vital participation. the universe, to which

all

of the sponds exactly to the Scientific Principia modern age to the evolutionary hypothesis with ;

its

display of an

immense unfolding organism,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

the correlation of forces and the conservation of

which forbid the doubt of any atom wasted, any part mismade or unaccounted for

energy,

eventually.

Sustained by this conception that nothing can be ultimately lost, or doomed to pain, or annihilated, in the universal frame, Whitman feels strong enough to cry

My foot is tenoned I laugh at

And

and mortised in granite,

what you

know

In the poem of " Burial

You

call dissolution,

the amplitude of time. "

he says

are not thrown to the winds safely

Yourself

around yourself Yourself

you gather certainly and

;

Yourself, for ever and ever.

Innumerable passages might be culled from his writings in which this sense of the immortality based by him on a purely scientific conception of the universe, but inspired with the

self,

fervour of faith, bursts forth in songs of jubilaHuman life has tion at the thought of death. t;ad infinite

antecedents,

and must expect an

the future. progression in its course. years do not reckon infinite

Millions of

Sooner or

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN The

will arrive at its fulfilment.

later,

tacle

of the

robust spirit

spec-

night cannot daunt a with the dread of its own nothingat

stars

the contrary, the stars inflate his bosom with the conviction that, ness.

There

no stoppage, and never can be stoppage and all beneath or upon their surfaces, were this moment reduced to a pallid float, it would is

;

If I, you, the world,

not avail in the long run

;

We should surely bring And

up again where we now stand, as much farther, and then farther and surely go

farther.

The thought of this continual progression .of the universe, to what end and for what purpose no

man knoweth, able.

But

for

will for

many Whitman it is

persons be intolerexhilarating

;

it is,

in other words, his religion.

rendezvous

The Lord

appointed

will be there,

it is

and wait

certain

till

;

I come,

(The great Camerado, the lover true for

on perfect terms

whom

I pine, will

be there).

Whether

this

cosmic enthusiasm, which has

been expressed by

Whitman with

a passion of

self-dedication, a particularity of knowledge,

sublimity

of imagination,

and

unapproached by

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

any poet-prophet

since the death

destined to reinforce the soul of

of Bruno,

man

with

faith,

and to inaugurate a new religion, I dare not even pause to question. We are told that it is not calculated to inspire the ignorant with rapture, to console the indigent and suffering by suggestions of some mitigation of their lot. Still I may point out that it is the only type of

which

agrees with determinations of science. faith

conclusions

and

To bear the yoke of

the plain destiny of human beings. could learn to bear that yoke with gladness,

universal law If

the

to thrill with vibrant fibres to the pulses of the infinite

machine we constitute

sible that

(for

were

pos-

the least of us should be eliminated,

annihilated, the whole machine

would stop and

crumble into chaos) if, I say, we could feel pride and joy in our participation of the cosmic life, then we might stand where Whitman stood

with "feet tenoned and mortised in granite." I do not think it is a religion only for the rich, the

For powerful, the wise, the healthy. part, I may confess that it shone upon

me when

was broken, when I was weak, sickly, and of no account and that I have ever

life

poor,

my own

;

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN lived thenceforward in the light

and warmth of

it.

In bounden duty toward Whitman, I make this personal statement for had it not been for the ;

contact of his fervent spirit with

pyre

readv

the

lighted,

own, the

combustible

materials of modern thought awaiting the touch

of the fire-bringer, might never have leapt up into the flame of life -long faith and consolation.

During

darkest hours,

comforted

the conviction that I too played illimitable symphony of cosmic

part in the

life.

sinned, repined, sorrowed, suffered,

me with

When touched

with a gentle hand of sympathy and understanding, sustained me with the strong" arm of assurance that in the end I could not go amiss (for I was part, an integrating part of the great whole)

;

and when strength revived in me, it stirred a healthy pride and courage to effectuate myself, bear the brunt of spiritual and arrows of outrageous fortune. to

duty to

foes,

the slings

For

this reason,

master Whitman, and in the hope

experience may encourage others to seek the same source of inspiration, I have exceeded the bounds of an analytical essay by pouring

that

forth

personal confession.

Ill

THE

inscription prefixed to

opens thus Small .

Leaves of Grass,

the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest namely, OXE'S SELF that wondrous thing, a simple, is

separate person.

all his

writings,

Whitman

sonality steadily in view, as

has

kept perthe leading motive

of his j)oetic and prophetic utterance. He regards wealth, material prosperity, culture, as nothing in

comparison with vigorous manhood and woman" hood. The greatest city is that which has the greatest

man

woman."

Nothing endures but

The greater the reform personal qualities." needed, the greater the personality you need to "

Nations, consequently, rise or fall, according to the quality of the persons who Human beings are nothing, constitute them.

accomplish

possess nothing, enjoy nothing, except through,

and by

their

self,

their personality.

To prove

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN this,

what an incomparably and healthy personality,

to demonstrate

cious thing a free

centred,

self-reliant,

owner of

it,

which

sion

comes the

how

self- effectuated,

preself-

for the

transcends every other possesriches or learning can confer, be-

first

object of his teaching.

Secondly,

he aims at showing that nations

only thrive and are strong by the character, the grit, the well- developed persqnajity, of their inhabitants.

Nothing can preserve a nation

in prosperity, or

perpetuate its fame, except the spiritual elements it has developed, as distinguished from brute force or

This

accumulated

capital.

the point of view from which he says

effuse Egotism, and show be the bard of personality.

I will

underlying

all

and I

will

Through a want of sympathy and intelligence, people have long time sneered or cavilled at this

must strive to proclamation of egotism. comprehend that Whitman does not thereby mean selfishness.

In one of his sublimest flights of the imagination Whitman describes the evolution of man out of primordial elements.

has absorbed

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

the results of modern scientific speculation regarding planetary development and the gradual

emergence of on our globe.

life

through

The picture

broad touches from

successive stages

its

am an acme

with "

the

huge

of things accomplished,

first

Nothing

human

to the emergence of a conscious I

dashed

soul.

and I

am an

know

encloser of

things to be.

Afar down I see the huge there

first

Nothing

was even

;

I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,

And

took

Long

time,

was hugged

and took no harm from the close

fetid carbon.

long and long.

Immense have been the

preparations for me, Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me.

Cycles ferried

boatmen

cradle,

rowing and rowing

like cheerful

;

For room to me

They sent

stars kept aside in their

influences to look after

Before I was born out of

own

what was mother,

rings

;

to hold me.

generations guided

embryo has never been lay

For

torpid

it.

the nebula cohered to an orb,

nothing

could

over-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN The long, low strata piled to rest it Vast vegetables give it sustenance, Monstrous

sauroids

deposited

on,

transported

their

mouths,

and

with care.

All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight

Now

;

this spot I stand

with

robust soul.

This passage will serve as a transition from the theme of cosmic enthusiasm to what Whit-

man

considered the main motive of his prophecy. man's self, his personality, being an inde-

structible integer of the universe,

follows that

each one of us contains within himself sympathies with nature and sensibilities that link him to the world he lives

in.

I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world ;

I do not doubt I limitless

limitless,

and that the universes are

in vain I try to think

how

limitless.

So then, the method of self-effectuation, the training and perfecting of personality, consists in the effort .to

tally nature,"

what quaintly phrases one

it.

Walt some-

The true man

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Who includes diversity, and is Who is the amplitude of the sexuality of the earth,

and the equilibrium

Nature, earth,

and the coarseness and

and the great charity

of the earth,

also,

Who

has not looked forth from the windows, the eyes for nothing, or whose brain held audiences with messengers for nothing

;

out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body, understands by subtle analogies all other theories, theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of These

Who, The

States.

This

new meaning given

the

to that

much-

belauded and disparaged Greek phrase ffiv Kara to Nature. Whitman fyvaiv, to live according applies

Now

a very particular sense

it in

making of the best persons, the open air, and to eat and sleep with the

I see the secret of the

It is to

grow

earth.

You must

test all the products of

mind by comparison with things

the

in the

human world

around you, see how far they agree with what you find in nature, whether they are applicable to

the

broadcast doings of

the

day": JSTow I re-examine philosophies

and

religions,

night

and

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

well in lecture-rooms, and yet not prove at under the spacious clouds, and along the landscape

They may prove all

and flowing currents.

Here

realisation

Here

him

man

;

tallied

here what he has in

realises

;

The animals, the if

past, the future, light, space, majesty, love, are vacant of you, you are vacant of them. they

He who

has imbued himself with nature, and

harmony with the world, is the proper To the judge, and critic, and sayer of words. is

would-be poet

Whitman

Can your performance side

Will

the open fields and the sea-

absorb into

as I absorb food, air

strength, gait, face

To the student of If

face

cries

his

own works he

you would understand me, go shore

to appear again

says

to the heights or water-

;

The nearest gnat

waves a key

The maul, the

an explanation, and a drop or motion

is ;

oar, the

No shuttered room But roughs and

hand-saw, second

or school can little

words.

commune with me, know me better than

children

they.

The young mechanic

is closest

he knows

well.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

The

real poems, the real words,

are not

what

people say, but things in the world, actualities, emotions, whereof words afe but the shadows

and grey phantoms

Human Air,

bodies are words, myriads of words

soil,

water,

lire

The workmanship earth

these are words

of souls

;

by the inaudible words

of the

;

I swear there

is no greatness or power that does not emulate those of the earth.

Logic and sermons never convince

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul The real poems (what we call poems being merely pictures), ;

The poems

of the privacy of the night,

Practising

and

men

me.

what he preaches, Whitman avers

that he never composed except in the open and says of his own poems

air,

I have read these leaves to myself in the tried

them by

open

air

I have

trees, stars, rivers.

In the prelude to one of his solemn diatribes upon the cosmic unity which connects and enfolds all creatures and all things, he represents

himself alone at night beside the sea, beneath the stars, and then :

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN I think a

thought of the

clef of the

universes,

and

of the

future.

conception of the intimate relation which exists between human personality and the ex-

This

ternal world, penetrates the whole of

work. fluous.

Whitman's

order to

would be superunderstand it and to

its application,

three pieces ought to

cull further instances

But,

appreciate

be attentively studied. These are " The Song of the Open Eoad," "To Workirig-Men," "To :

the Sayers of Words."

The great and

then, are the universe

The world and

personality. alone,

facts,

man.

Each

and self

measure of the world

for itself the

;

and taught by nature more than by churches and traditions by experience of life, by conduct and emotion, more than by creeds trained

;

and formulas.

Whitman

upon the independence and the arrogance of self, what the Greeks called avrapKtia, what the Germans call Selbst-standigkeit.

insists

will

even

sacrifice

some

points of conduct and morality for this spinal Revolt against opinion, quality of self-reliance.

against law, indulgence in untamed proclivities, are even justified in certain cases. rebellion

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

not the poet of goodness only I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also. What blurt is this about virtue and about vice ? I

Evil propels me, and reform of evil propels indifferent

gait

I stand

;

fault-finder's or rejecter's gait

;

I moisten the root of all that has grown.

To enforce insists

which that everything C3

is.

poems, arts, have grown individual

are

for

leaves

music, like

Without

soul.

human

these things be

Whoever you

exists for the

All doctrines, politics, civilisations,

individual.

without

Whitman

his doctrine of personality,

are

Religions the

from

grass

you,

personalities, ?

him.

without

where

me,

w ould r

all

motion and

reflection are especially for

you.

The

divine ship sails the divine sea for you.

Whoever you are you solid %nd liquid, !

You

are he or she for

whom

the

whom

the earth

sun or moon hang in

the sky, *

In conversation with Mr.

his object in writing

W. Wallace, Whitman declared

and publishing "Leaves

arouse that something in the reader describe things outside you arouse that which is in you.

that

Grass" was "to

call character

....

not to but

creeds, or bibles, or anything else It is in you/'

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN For none more than you are the present and the For none more than you is immortality.

Each man

to himself,

and each woman to

past,

herself,

such

the word of the past and present, and the word of

immortality one can acquire for another ;

Not one can grow

In like

manner,

by what each one

not one

for another

only through ourselves, and has become, that we

enjoy or suffer, enter into our natural heritage or are defrauded of our birthright. Consider, then, of

what vast importance

for all of us

to maintain our personality in health to abstain from habits that

warp

and vigour,

or degrade, to

encourage the nobler and sweeter elements of our nature. Though Whitman proclaims himself the "poet of wickedness," he

wrong conduct,

well aware that

perversity, meanness, uncleanli-

"The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him the

ness, are deleterious to self.

;

theft

the thief, the love

him

cannot

;

Whatsoever a man soweth, The doer must suffer reap.

fail."

that shall he also for his deed.

to the lover,

and comes back most to

to the giver,

the gift

There

lasting consequences

no act that has not ever-

the agent.

Each

soul

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

doom

drees the

its

own

find no immorality in

action

and emotion.

Whitman's gospel of

egotism. Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.

specification is necessary

that

that a male or female does

all

vigorous, benevolent, clean,

him or

much

profit to

her, in the unshakable order of the universe,

through the whole scope of

The young man who composedly

and

for ever.

perilled his life

and

lost

it,

has done exceedingly well for himself, without doubt. lie who never perilled his life, but retains it to old age in riches self

and

ease, has

probably achieved nothing for him-

worth mentioning.

Terrible

the

doom

of those who, by neglect-

ing their health of body and soul, by shutting up their minds to natural influences, by truckling to

superstitions

their

own

of living

self.

and serving false gods, injure They have lost the greatest joy

the joy of a manly self-hood Personality to be servile to hone !

known

to defer to

none

not to

unknown, any tyrant, To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, To look with calm gaze, or with flashing eye, To speak with a full sonorous voice, out of a broad chest,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN To confront with your personality

the other personalities

all

of the earth.

That

supremest of joys will be missed by those who do not respect self as their sole and indefeasible possession.

But what meaning does Whitman attach to this word Personality ? How does he envisage that phenomenon of self, which is the one thing certain for each separate individual who thinks

and

feels,

and which he has therefore selected

main motive of

as the

Personality

man

his

prophecy

itself

presents

him,

of soul

woman, under the double aspect and body, and furthermore as differen-

tiated

average

that in this

sex.

life

the soul

appears to have believed is

inextricably connected

with the body, so that whatever is done in the body redounds to the advantage or disadvantage of the soul. At the same time the fleshly body is

destined to dissolution.

pronounced to be

excrementitious," whereas the principle of

hood

indestructible,

and

the

soul

self-

may

transformed, but can never perish.

During constitutes

this

life,

man and

any

rate,

the

body

forms the channel of

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

communication

between

and

soul

his

outer

things.* had received identity by

I too

That I was, I knew was I

The

knew should be

my Body my body and what my body. :

I should be,

body has therefore a

mystic value for Whitman, not merely because of its exceeding beauty and delightfulness, but also because it is

verily the temple of the divinest of all things

know, the human

soul.

more than another,

If I worship one thing

spread of If anything

And

my own

body, or

sacred, the

any

part of

human body

the glory and sweet of a man, untainted

shall

be the

it.

sacred,

the token of manhood

;

And

man

woman, a

clean, strong, firm-fibred body,

beautiful as the most beautiful face.

The paramount importance of pure and wholesome manhood or womanhood becomes apparent

when we

reflect that

All comes by the body universe.

only health puts you rapport with the

* In conversation with Mr. J. 1891,

Whitman spoke

development underlying

"My

all."

W. Wallace favourite

Camden,

theory

in the year

physiological

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Again, though the actual form of flesh which clothes us in this life be excrementitious, still the body in some higher sense

not doomed

to die. Of your real body, and any man's or woman's real body, Item for item, it will elude the hands of the corpse-cleaners, and pass to fitting spheres, Carrying what has accrued to

moment

the

Behold

from the moment of birth to

of death.

the body includes and is the meaning, the and includes and is the soul

concern

Whoever you

;

are

how

body, or any part of

Think I

main

of the soul

superior and

how

divine

your

it.

;

swear to you that body of yours gives proportions to your soul

I do not

somehow to live in other spheres know how, but I know it is so.

wonder, then,

;

Whitman,

feeling thus,

exclaims at times that the distinction between and_ body, so far as the individual cerned, vanishes away.

soul

I have said that the

not more than the body, body is not more than the soul

nothing, not God,

greater to one than one's self

have said that the soul

And And

con-

We human

may now

ask what

personality.

Where

Whitman's

;

is.

ideal of

does he find the

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

best type of

womanly woman is

the manliest man, the most

self,

The answer

not far to seek,

and nature.

life

when we bear

know about

already

to this question in

his preference for

His hero

sure to be "

nonchalant and natural person culture or a bookworm, but one

born with a

;

not a

open some

man

who has been

fine physique, capable of subduing"

the external world

his

delighting in his labour stincts

mind what

and strong

;

own man

purpose, and of healthy in-

passions, vividly enjoying the

boon pleasures of life, and keenly responding to the beauty and the wonder of the world. The boy

same becomes a man, not through derived in own right, but his power, Wicked, rather than virtuous out of conformity or fear,

Fond

I love, the

of his sweetheart, relishing well his steak,

Unrequited

love, or

a slight, cutting him worse than sharp

steel cuts,

First-rate to ride, to fight, to hit the bull's-eye, to sail a skiff,

to sing a song, to play on

th'e

banjo,

and the beard, and

Preferring scars, pox, over all latherers,

And

faces pitted with small-

those well tanned to those that keep out of the sun.*

* This

rather like a fragment which I have translated from the little known German writer, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

works of the

the lad village-born with sinewy members Than the pale face of a line town-bred effeminate youngling

Dearer to

;

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN This theme

repeated with endless variations. The ground-thought recurs over and over again, is

the sequel, be found to dominate his theory of the state politic.

and

will, in

all

Myself and mine gymastic ever, To stand the cold or heat -to take good aim with a gun to to beget superb children, to manage horses sail a boat

To speak

readily

home among common

and

clearly

own

in terrible positions,

to feel at

people,

And Not

to hold our for

an embroiderer

on land and

sea.

;

(There will always be plenty of embroiderers

welcome them

also;)

But

for the fibre of things,

Not But

to chisel ornaments,

chisel

and

for inherent

men and women.

with free strokes the heads and limbs

plenteous supreme Gods, that these States

may

realise

them, walking and talking.

Such men Whitman

women he demands

calls

for the

"athletes,"

and the

back-bone of a nation

Dearer to me is a groom, a tamer of horses, a hunter, Yea, or a sailor on board: but dear to me down to the heart's depth,

Dearest of all are the young, steel-thewed, magnificent soldiers Be it the massive form of a black-browed insolent guardsman, Or a blue-eyed hussar with the down new-fledged on his firm lip Who with clanking spurs and martial tread when they meet me, Know not how goodly they are, the sight of them how over-

whelming.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

must equally be

"athletic."

convinced

that in such personalities the soul reaches its maximum of magnetic attraction and persuasiveness.

Here rises the fluid and attaching character The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweet;

ness of

man and woman

Toward the

fluid

of the love of

From

falls

and attaching character exudes the sweat young and old

distilled

attainments

Toward

;

the charm that mocks beauty and

;

heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.

I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes

;

We convince by our presence. "

magnetism," to attract and persuade by merely being vigorous and sound and free, is the crown and glory of a perfected personality. effuse

Do you

how it would serve to have such a body and when you enter the crowd, an atmosphere of and command enters with you, and every one is

not see

soul, that

desire

impressed with your personality

Those severe and awful utterances, " "

Hand-

To a President," Of Persons Arrived at High Positions," and some pregnant passages Mirror,"

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN from lesson

"A :

wealth,

Leaf of Faces," point the opposite how useless it is to have conquered

place,

honours,

one has lost his own

corrupted his own live body, neglected and dishonoured his own self. soul,

THE

transition from Personality to

difficulty.

Sex

offers

Sex, the passions, the affections, love,

are clearly the main things in life. In his treatment of Love, Whitman distin-

guishes two

broad kinds of human affection

;

the one being the ordinary sexual relation, the other comradeship or an impassioned relation between man and man. The former he describes as

" adhesiveness." amativeness," the latter as

There

no reason

why

both forms of emotion

should not co-exist in the same person. Indeed Whitman makes it plain that a completely en-

dowed have

individuality, one who, as " said, is entirely rounded

ragged both.

Horace might and without

highly susceptible of The exact bearing of amativeness and edges,"

will

adhesiveness upon one another, and upon the spiritual nature of the individual, has been fully expressed in the following

poem

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN Fast-anchored eternal bride of

Then

wife

you

love

resistless

woman

I love

than I can

tell,

the thought

separate, as disembodied or another born,

Ethereal, the last athletic reality,

consolation,

1 ascend, I float in the regions of your love,

sharer of

roving

man,

life.

the most condensed and weighty of Whitman's utterances upon the subject of Since this

love,

every word in

may

been carefully considered. insignificant " 1

860-6 1,

the

first

notice that, "

primeval line, "

another born

be supposed to have It is not therefore

and

stood for

the

edition

fast-anchored

the purest born

for

of in

in the third line.

complete works which deals exclusively with sexual love, is entitled " Children of Adam." The frankness and the

The

section

his

rankness of the pieces composing this chapter of insults, calumnies, called down a storm unpopularity,

on Whitman.

Yet the

attitude

which he assumed as poet and prophet demanded this frankness, while the spirit of his treatment

deprived the subject-matter of

its

rankness.

His originality consisted, I have said, in giving the idealism of poetry and powerful emotion to

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Now

the blank results of modern science. is

the very nature of science to

consider

common or unclean," to accept all nothing as the facts presented to its vision with indifference, caring for nothing in the process of analysis except the proof of reality, the elucidation of Science, in her wise impartiality, regards

truth.

morbid

and

phenomena, disease and decay,

worthy of attention, upon as healthy and normal products.

aberration,

the same lines

crime

She knows that pathology

an indispensable

adjunct to the study of organic structure. Sharing the scientific spirit in his quality of poet,

Whitman was

not

called

celebrate

^wliSit

unhealthy and abnormal in humanity.

That

a proper subject

The

poet's

invigorate.

function

duty to

his

the

for

laboratory.

stimulate

and

upon what which conduce

insist

wholesome, the things in life to organic growth, the natural instincts is

and

normal appetites upon which the continuation of

the species, the energy of the individual, the welfare of the family, the fabric of the

commonwealth, eventually rest. and being penetrated with the

Feeling thus, scientific spirit,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Whitman was of healthy

justified

manhood

claiming the whole

and womanhood

To exclude sex from

province.

his

for

his account

human nature would have been absurd for it is precisely sex by which men and women ;

are differentiated

mutual

;

relations

sex which brings them into of amativeness sex which ;

determines the preservation and the future of The inspiration which prompted the species. first

him,

among modern

poets, to penetrate the

blank results of science with imagination and emotion, led him inevitably to a frank treatment of sexual relations.

human body had be considered

Each portion of the healthy for a

thinker of his type to sweet and clean." He could not

shrink from the facts of paternity and maternity, these being the most important both for men

and women, and through them for society at For him " the parts and poems of the large. "

body soul

are not

indeed

of the body only, but of the these are the soul." Following

the impulse which forced him to insist upon a vigorous and healthy personality or self as the

fundamental integer of human to impress

upon

his nation the

life,

he proceeded

paramount duty

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

maintaining

Scientific

robust

may

pathology

abnormalities and diseases. is

sufficiently,

For the

evils.

scientific point

and be

breed.

healthy to

left

The

deal with

social conscience

dimly, acquainted with those the poet, who has accepted

of view,

it is

enough to indicate

But he enjoys the privilege of proclaiming the beauty and the goodness of functions and organs which constitute the central their wrongness.

human

reality of

of sex,

To recognise the dignity teach personalities, both male and

that

female,

life.

have

they

and that

the

right to

pride in

it,

was

a poet of Whitman's stamp

for

consideration.

Those

this pride

mediaeval

sexual

sinfulness,

those

chaste

abstinence,

those

foul- minded

had

their

duty, a prime

lies

regarding panegyrics of

foolish

base

take a

insinuations

be swept away not by polemic or vituperation, but by a plain proclamation of the truth which had been veiled priests,

from sight so long. Delicacy in matters of sex had become indelicacy by a false habit of envisaging the

fact.

All falsehood

inconsistent

with science and injurious to the best interests of society.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN Having entered upon

this

region

with

the

objects I have hinted at

mental truths,

a recognition of fundaan acceptance of scientific as

opposed to theological principles, a deep sense of personality, and a conviction that the maintenance of the breed at is

a prime

its

condition

highest level ofefficiency of national well-being

Whitman

naturally treated the ordinary sexual relations with a breadth and simplicity which

appear to more sophisticated minds as brutal. He does not shrink from images and descriptions,

from metaphors and phrases, as closely borrowed from the facts of sex as are his pictures of the outer world, or

his

transcripts from the

occu-

being for him so serious and excellent a thing, has the right to equal freedom of speech with sunrise or sunpations of

setting,

and

the

mankind.

stars in

Sex,

their

courses,

the woods

the industries of carpenter or typethe courage of soldiers, the inevitable

fields,

setter,

fact

about

death.

many

Therefore

speaks

plainly

things which hitherto were tacitly

ignored in poetry, or were touched upon by seekers after obscene literary effects. It is not inconsequent that he should have been accused

A STUDY OF WAIT WHITMAN

of indecency, because the things he talked of had so long been held to be indecent. Wishing to

remove the stigma of indecency and obscenity, which he rightly considered due to conventionally

imported prejudices, he

misconstruction

hend

of'

those

who

had to

face

the

could not compre-

his real intention.

Whitman thought and wrote

habitually, not

with people of culture, refined tastes, literary and social traditions in view, but for the needs and aspirations of

what he

called

the divine aver-

aimed at depicting robust and sane He wanted to brace humanity in his verse. character, and to create through his art- work a age."

type applicable to

all sorts

irrespective of their specific

and conditions of men,

previous differentiation by

temperament or

class-association.

For

this reason, his treatment of the sexual relations will be felt

by some persons not only to be crudely

frank in detail, but also to lack delicacy in

its

The overwhelming

attractions general outlines. of sex, swaying the physique of men and women, are broadly insisted upon. The intercourse

established

matrimony is regarded not so much as an intellectual and moral union, but in

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN as

an association

labours of

human

and

life,

mutual

for

assistance, in the

for the production of noble

specimens;

an Adamic hygienic

view of marriage, satisfying the instincts of the primeval man. Take this passage, in which he describes the qualities of the help-mate for his typical male.

Without shame the man

knows and avows the

I like

delicious-

ness of his sex,

Without shame the woman

Now

I will dismiss myself

I like

knows and avows

hers.

from impassive women,

go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me

I will

;

I see that they understand me, I

see that they are

worthy

and do not deny me

I will

be the robust

husband of these women.

They are not one jot less than I am, They are tanned in the face by shining suns and blowing winds, Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,

They know how

to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run, strike ,

retreat, advance, resist,

They are ultimate

in their

defend themselves,

own

right

they are calm, clear,

well-possessed of themselves. I

draw you

close to

me, you

women

I cannot let you go, I would do you good, I

for you,

and you are for me, not only

but for others' sake

;

for our

own

sake,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards, They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.

obvious, from this slightly humorous, but

pregnant, passage, that Whitman abandoned those dregs of mediaeval sentimentalism and

which

through the middleminds of an unchivalrous modern age, have

platonism, class

filtering

" the commonplace notions about " weaker and the fairer sex," woman's mission to

resulted

console

the

and

elevate," the

stronger

the

protection rendered "

frailer,"

ornament of our homes

the

feminine

notions and phrases

which the active-minded and able-bodied

woman

of the present day repudiates, and from the thraldom of which she is rapidly working out her

way toward

freedom.

Whitman,

of Clough, looked upon love as

to use a phrase fellow -service."

recognised the woman's right to share alike with man in labour and in privilege. And it was

not for nothing, as appears from some sentences in the quotation, that he spoke in another place about " the athletic American matron." * *

" Leaves of Grass," Whitman In the preface to the 1872 edition of book "is, in its intentions, the song of a great com-

asserts that this

posite democratic individual, male or female."

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

theory of sexual relations, so primitive, so archetypal, so based and planted on the primal

needs and instincts, must of necessity lack much of delicacy and fine gradations. It is, however, bracing to return to this from the psychological studies of the modern French school, from such silly "

and nauseous

Physiologic de

lucubrations

Bourget's

Amour Moderne," from all that " of L' Amour Coupable," which

stifling literature

lands us at last in nothing better than what Whitman calls " the sly settee, and the unwhole-

some adulterous couple." There is an ^Eschylean largeness, a Lucretian " Children of Adam." Sex energy, in Whitman's once again recognised not in boudoir, the alcove, the brothel

its

;

aspect of the

but as the bass-

note of the world, the universal Pan, unseen, yet

omnipresent, felt by all, responded to by all, without which the whole vast symphony of things

would have tions,

forests

for

value.

he connects the

and night- winds,

life

By subtle

associa-

of nature, in

dewy

in scents of fruits

and

crushed herbs, and the rustling rain-drenched foliage against our faces, with

pungent plants, -of

man no

impressions of the sexual imagination.

finds

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

the choicest

images

shadow

forth the acts

of sex. The hairy wild bee that murmurs and hankers up and down that gripes the full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied.

That style,

audacious, in spite of

critic will exclaim.

its

consummate

But the same

critic,

being accustomed by habit to the exercise, reads with equanimity the long-drawn paragraphs and chapters which lay bare the latest secrets of the " The boudoir, the alcove, the sly settee."

have come to be recognised as legitimate Even Bourget, even subjects for analytical art. Catulle Mendes, are accepted and acclaimed.

brothel,

From these taints of the city and civilisation Whitman calls us away. He says in passing :

Have you

seen the fool that corrupted his own live body ? or the fool that corrupted her own live body ? For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

Here and there he returns

to this

point

and

He insists upon the truth repeats the warning. that sins against the body, self- contamination, uncleanly lusts

and refinements of sensuality,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN carry their

own punishment.

But he knows that

their analysis in literature, except for the pro-

fessed pathologist

and

psychiatrist,

the manhood of a nation

and

harmful to

whereas the rehabita-

and legitimate functions restores

tion of healthy

the natural

;

man

own Nor does Whitman

to a sense of his

dignity

neglect of that superflux sense, which also claims a part in human life, that phallic ecstasy of which the responsibility.

pagan poets sang. "

Children of

plainly.

need

Adam

much-criticised piece from "

called

be enlarged

not

the matter very Native Moments," and

puts "

Were we

upon.

not

expressly told by him that it is useless to extract a coherent system from his utterances, we might be puzzled to explain the logical connection of

poem with

that

the

rest

of the

that he recognised the right " and the necessity of " native moments in that free play of the normal senses which he is up-

section.

take

Only, the ground- thoughts which penetrate the whole of his work upon this topic, the pervading essence whereof will remain holding.

longest with those

who have imbibed

are expressed in lines like these

its spirit,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

66 If

any thing

And

sacred, the

human body is sacred, man is the token

the glory and sweet of a untainted

manhood

;

And

man

woman, a

clean, strong, firm-fibred

body

beautiful as the most beautiful face.

could come again, he would reWhitman's treatment of Aphrodite as

If ^Eschylus

cognise

-akin to these lines of his

Love throbs

And The

own

in holy heaven to

wound the

earth

;

prompts the land to yearn for bridals rain that falls in rivers from the sky, love

still

;

Impregnates earth, and she brings forth for men The Hocks and herds and life of teeming Ceres

The bloom

of forests

Is perfected

in all

by dews hymeneal which things I rule.

have

literature

handled openly in and I do not see why we should not

have

how we

it,

are

sex

are to avoid

surely

the

company of poets like JEschylus and Whitman, who place human love among the large and universal mysteries of

better to

nature, than to dwell with theologians

who

con-

simple truth with sinfulness, or with " " who dabble in its self-dubbed psychologues

found

its

morbid pruriencies.

V THE with is

of Whitman's

section

fully

difficult

deal with,

Adam."

gave

love

and

as important, to

the

adhesiveness,

works which deals

comrades,

some ways more

than his " Children

the

title

the root of a water- rush,

Calamus," from

adopted by him as Here the element of

the symbol of this love.^ spirituality in passion, of romantic feeling, and of deep enduring sentiment, which was almost conspicuous by its absence from the section on sexual love, emerges into vivid prominence, and lends peculiar

treatment.

the

warmth had

love of

" ;

man

for

expect so much from at the commencement of

poem quoted by me

There Whitman described the

this disquisition.

nal

of poetry to the artistic

woman

fast-anchor'd, eter-

the thought of the bridej

Its botanical

name

or "sweet sedge."

Acorus Calamus,

the wife, as

call it

sweet-rush "

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

resistless

man

love of class

for

than I can

tell."

But

for the

man he

of descriptive

finds quite a different " separate, disemphrases :

bodied, another born, ethereal, the last athletic

reality,

have

consolation."

hints

that

the realm of sex and sense, and have

left

ascended into a different and rarer atmosphere, where passion, though it has not lost its is

strength,

clarified.

campos lumine

Largior hie aether, et

vestit purpureo."

This emphatic treatment of an emotion which usually talked about under the vague and

formal term of friendship, gives peculiar import" ance to Calamus." No man in the modern

world has expressed so strong a conviction that "

manly attachment," "athletic

towering love of comrades,"

human

life,

to lay its

"the higha main factor in love,"

a virtue upon which society will have firm foundations, and a passion equal

permanence, superior in spirituality, to the Whitman regards this emotion sexual affection.

" consolation" of the individual, not only as the but also as a new and hitherto unapprehended force for stimulating national vitality.

There

no softness or sweetness in his treat-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN of this

raent

His

theme.

tone

throughout at a high pitch of

virile

sustained

enthusiasm,

which, at the same time, vibrates with acutest

with

thrills

feeling,

undercurrent

the

Not only the sublimest

tenderest sensibility.

thoughts and aspirations, but also the shyest, most shame-faced, yearnings are reserved for

At one time he exclaims

this love. I think

it is

not for

that I

life

I think it

of lovers

must be

For how calm, how solemn

chanting here

chant

for Death,

grows, to ascend to the atmo-

sphere of lovers,

Death or

life

then indifferent

soul

declines

prefer,

not sure but the high soul of lovers welcomes death

most

;

Indeed,

Death, I think now these leaves mean precisely the

same as you mean

Grow up of

taller,

;

sweet leaves, that I

breast

may

see

Grow up out

Spring away from the concealed heart there Do not fold yourselves so, in your pink-tinged roots, timid !

leaves

not remain down there so ashamed, herbage of

The

leaves

are

Whitman's

poems they engender spring

;

breast

emotions and the

the root from which they

manly attachment/'

athletic love,"

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

symbolised for him in the blushing root of the pond-calamus which he plucked one day and chose to be the

emblem of the

love of lovers

here I last saw him that tenderly loves again, never to separate from me,

And

and returns comrades

this shall henceforth be the token of

this,

this Calamus-root shall,

Interchange back!

it,

youths, with each other

At another follows

may

Let none render

time, in minor key, he writes as

you when I often and

be with you

I walk

by your

silently

come where you

are, that I

;

side, or sit near, or

remain in the same

room with you, Little

you know the

subtle, electric fire that for

your sake

playing within me.

These extracts were necessary, because there some misapprehension abroad regarding the 1

precise "

nature

Calamus."

what Whitman

His method of treatment

certain extent, exposed Still,

meant

his

Burroughs, puts

friend "

him and

to misconstruction.

commentator,

The sentiment

athletic, taking form in

all

has, to a

manner of

Mr.

primitive,

large

and

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

homely out-of-door images, and springs, as any one may see, directly from the heart and

The language has a experience of the poet." passionate glow, a warmth of devotion, beyond to

anything

which the world

celebration of friendship.

used in the

the same time the

note of insincerity or sensuousness heard. The melody is in the Dorian

false

never

mood-

minds that fellowship in armswhich flourished among the Dorian tribes, and recalling to our

formed the chivalry of pre-historic Hellas. In the preface to the 1880 edition of " Leaves of Grass his

own

feelings

and

Two

Rivulets,"

explanation of

make a

full confession.

Grass" to arouse and

set

for, while I am about it r I also sent out " Leaves of

flowing in

hearts, young and old, endless streams love and friendship, directly from them ever. less

gives

Calamus," and of the

which inspired that section of his work.

Something more may be added I would

Whitman

To this terrible, down underneath

satisfied appetite for

men's and women's of

living, pulsating

to myself,

now and

irrepressible yearning (surely

most human

sympathy and

souls), this

more or never-

this boundless offering of

sympathy, this universal democratic comradeship, this eternal, yet ever-new interchange of adhesiveness, so

old,,

fitly

emblematic of America, I have given in that book, undisBesides, imguisedly, declaredly, the openest expression.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

portant as they are in my purpose as emotional expressions for humanity, the special meaning of the " Calamus," cluster "

(and more or less running through the book and cropping out in " Drum Taps "), mainly resides in its political significance. In my opinion, it is by a fervent of

Leaves of

Grass

accepted development of comradeship, the beautiful and sane affection of man for man, latent in all the young fellows,

north and south, east and west

what goes

this, I say,

and by

and

indirectly along with it, that the directly United States of the future (I cannot too often repeat) are to

be the most effectually welded together, intercalated, annealed into a living union. so,

Whitman

may

occasion

This being

comradeship

physical desire.

never suggests that the development of

he does

the other hand,

not in set terms condemn desires, or warn his disciples against their perils.

distinctly sensuous side

you be not

silently selected

indeed

to his conception of

To a Western Boy he says

adhesiveness. If

There

and do not

lovers,

silently

select lovers,

Of what use

is it

that you seek to become elect of mine

Plato,

the

Plicedrus,

Whitman

de-

an enthusiastic type of masculine emotion, leaving its private details to the moral sense scribes

and

special

cerned.

inclination of the

individuals

con-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN The poet himself appears

to be not wholly

unconscious that there are dangers and difficulties involved in the highly-pitched emotions he is praising.

The whole tenor of two

compositions, entitled

me now

ing

Whoever you "

hand," and

carefully- toned

suggest an underlying sense of

are,

Hold-

Trickle, Drops," spiritual conflict.

The following poem, again, is sufficiently significant and typical to call for literal transcription :

Earth,

likeness

Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there, I now suspect that is not all ;

now

suspect there forth

something

fierce in you, eligible to burst

;

is enamoured of me and I of him, But toward him there is something fierce and terrible

For an athlete

in me,

eligible to burst forth,

I dare not

The

tell it

word

reality of

delight

which

not even in these songs.

Whitman's

derives

feeling, the intense

from

the

personal

presence and physical contact of a beloved man, find

luminous

"Recorders

expression

"When

Glimpse," heard at

ages hence," " I saw in Louisiana a Livethe Close of Day," " Oak growing," Long I thought that Know-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

ledge alone would

suffice

Prairie-Boy /' and "Vigil the Field one Night." t It

then

clear

the

O I

Strange

kept

treatment of

in his

that,

Tan-faced

the impassioned love of man Whitman has struck a keynote, to or

comradeship, for

me,"*

man,

emotional

intensity of which

the modern

w orld is unaccustomed. It therefore becomes of much importance to discover the poet-prophet's r

Stimmung

his radical

instinct with regard

the moral quality of the feeling he encourages.

Studying his works by their own

light,

and by

the light of their author's character, interpreting each part by reference to the whole and in the the whole, an

spirit of

think, be

calls

meant "

drawn

the to

the

impartial critic will, I

conclusion

fhat what

"adhesiveness" of comradeship is have no interblending with the

amativeness

undeniable that

of sexual love.

Whitman

keen sense of the

Personally,

possessed a specially

fine restraint

and continence,

the cleanliness and chastity, that are inseparable * Not included in the " Complete Poems and Prose." found in " Leaves of Grass," Boston, 1860-61. " f The two last are from Drum-Taps."

It will

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

and physically complete nature of healthy manhood. Still we have the right to predicate the same ground-qualities in

from the perfectly

virile

the early Dorians, those founders of the martial and yet it is notorious institution of Greek love to students of Greek civilisation that the lofty ;

sentiment of their masculine chivalry was intertwined with much that is repulsive to modern sentiment.

Whitman

does

not

appear

to have

taken

some of the phenomena of contemporary morals into due account, although he must have been aware of them. that,

Else

he would have foreseen

human nature being what

it is,

we cannot

expect to eliminate all sensual alloy from emotions raised to a high pitch of passionate intensity, and that permanent elements within the midst of our society will imperil the absolute purity of the ideal he attempts to establish. It is obvious that those unenviable mortals

who

are the inheritors of sexual anomalies, will

recognise "

superb

known," waiting,

their

own

emotion

Whitman's

unexalte, friendship, previously " which waits, and has been always " latent in all

men," the

something

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

" ethereal me, eligible to burst forth," " the last athletic reality." Had comradeship,"

fierce in

I not the strongest proof in

Whitman's private

correspondence with myself that he repudiated " Calamus," I any such deductions from his

admit that I should have regarded them as and I am not certain whether his own justified ;

feelings

upon

altered

since

this delicate topic "

the time

when

not have

may

Calamus

was

first

composed. These considerations do

not,

however, affect

the spiritual quality of his ideal. After acknowledging, what Whitman omitted to perceive, that

there

are

between sexual

inevitable

points

anomaly and

his

contact

doctrine

comradeship, the question now remains whether he has not suggested the way whereby abnormal instincts

be moralised and raised to higher

may

In other words, are those exceptional " " Calamus instincts with the provided in value.

means of

their salvation from the filth

of brutal appetite this question less

;

for the issue

momentous than the

new

and mire

difficult

answer

involved

nothing

possibility of evoking

chivalrous enthusiasm, analogous to that

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN of

primitive

Hellenic

which are at present pitudes of

human

Let us look a

society, classified

from

emotions

among the

tur-

nature. little

closer at the expression

which Whitman has given to his own feelings about friendship. The first thing that strikes us

the

masculine

mystic emblem he love. That is the

scented rush, called

wild

has chosen

for

water-plant,

Calamus," w hich springs T

paths untrodden, in the growth by margins of pond- waters." He hag " chosen these " emblematic and capricious blades in

places,

because of their shyness, their aromatic perfume, their aloofness from the patent life of the world.

them

timid leaves,"

calls

sweet leaves, pink-tinged roots, scented herbage of my breast."

Finally, he says :*

Here my last words, and the most baffling, Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting. Here I shade down, and hide my thoughts I do not expose them,

And

yet they expose

me more

than

all

other poems.

The manliness of the emotion which

thus

* This I cannot find in " Complete Poems and Prose." It is included 1 860-61, and the Camden edition, 1876.

in the Boston edition,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

appears in the magnificent address to soldiers at the close of " the great war Over the Carnage rose Pro* in the a Voice." Its tenderness

so shyly, allegorically indicated,

emerges

phetic

elegy on a slain comrade

Vigil for boy of responding kisses

responding)

(never again on earth

Vigil for comrade swiftly slain

vigil I

day brightened, I rose from the chill ground, and folded

never forget,

how

soldier well in his

blanket,

And

buried him where he

fell.

pathos and clinging intensity transpire through the last lines of the following piece, which may have been suggested by the legends Its

of David and Jonathan, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades :{ *

"Drum

Taps."

Complete Poems,

p. 247.

f Ibid. p. 238.

" Leaves of Grass." + Complete Poems, p. 107. Since writing the above, I have been privileged to read a series of letters addressed by

young man, whom I will call P., and who was tenderly " They throw a flood of life upon Calamus," and are It to is to be any commentary. greatly superior hoped that they may be published. Whitman, it seems, met P. at Washington not long before the year 1869, when the lad was about eighteen years of age. They soon became attached, Whitman's friendship being returned with at least equal warmth by P. The letters breathe a purity and simplicity of affection, a naivete and reasonableness, which are very

Whitman

to a

beloved by him.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN When of I

I peruse the conquered

fame

of heroes,

and the

victories

mighty generals,

do not envy the generals,

Nor the President house

in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great

;

But when I read

of the brotherhood of lovers,

how

was with

them,

How

through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging, long and long,

Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were, Then I am pensive I hastily put down the book, and walk away,

filled

with the bitterest envy.

But Whitman does not conceive of comradeship as a merely personal possession, delightful to the

friends

links in bonds of amity.

regards it This eventually as a social and political virtue. human emotion is destined to cement society and to

render

commonwealths

inviolable.

Reading

remarkable considering the unmistakable intensity of the emotion. Throughout them, Whitman shows the tenderest and wisest care for his young friend's welfare, helps him in material ways, and bestows

upon him the best advice, the heartiest encouragement,

without

betraying any sign of patronage or preaching. Illness soon attacked Walt. He retired to Camden, and P., who was employed as " baggagemaster on the freight-trains" of a railway, was for long unable to

There is something very wistful in the words addressed visit him. from a distance by the aging poet to this " son of responding kisses." I regret that we do not .possess P.'s answers. Yet, probably, to most for it is clear he .readers, they would not appear highly interesting was only an artless and uncultured workman. ;

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

some of Greece

his poems, to Plato's

are carried back to ancient

Symposium, to Philip gazing on the sacred band of Thebans after the fight at Chaeronea.^ dream'd in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth ;

I dream'd that

was the new City

of Friends

Nothing was greater there than the quality led the rest It

;

of robust love

;

was seen every hour in the actions in all their looks and words.

of the

men

of that city,

And

again

I believe the

main purport

These States is to found a superb

friendship, exalte, previously

unknown,

Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.

And Come, I I will

once again will

make

the continent indissoluble

;

the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone

upon; I will

me,"

make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of comrades.

Complete Poems,

p. 109.

Compare,

hear

was charged against

ibid. p. 107.

Complete Poems,

Camden

no.

Complete Poems, Democratic Vistas," Complete Prose, p. 247, note. edition, 1876, p. 127.

p. 99.

Compare

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

I will plant companionship thick as trees all along the rivers of America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all

over the prairies

make

I will

;

inseparable

other's necks

cities,

with their arms about each

;

By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades. For you these from me,

Democracy, to serve you

jemme ! For you,

for

you

may

trilling these songs.

from this

return

inquiry whether anything like a is

to be expected from the

new

chivalry

doctrines of

mus," which shall in the future

the

analysis

utilise for

Cala-

noble

purposes some of those unhappy instincts which at present run to waste in vice and shame.

may be asked what these passions have in common with the topic of Whitman's prophecy ? WhitThey have this in common with it. man recognises among the sacred emotions and It

social tical

virtues, life

jealous,

man

and

destined

man

regenerate

sensitive,

love

poli-

an intense,

cement nations,

throbbing, for

love

expectant

which

yearns

absence, droops under the sense of neglect, revives at the return of the beloved a love that :

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

finds honest delight in hand-touch,

meeting

lips,

hours of privacy, close personal contact. He proclaims this love to be not only a daily fact in the present, but also a saving

and ennobling

aspira-

While he expressly repudiates, disowns, and brands as "damnable" all "morbid infertion.

be drawn by malevolence or vicious cunning from his doctrine, he is prepared to extend the gospel of comradeship to the whole ences

which

human

may

expects democracy, the new social and political medium, the new religious race.

mankind, to develop and extend "that fervid comradeship," and by its means to counterideal of

balance and to spiritualise what is vulgar and " materialistic in the modern world. Democracy," he maintains, " infers such loving comradeship, as its most inevitable twin or counterpart, with-

out which

will

be incomplete, in vain, and

incapable o f perpetuating itself."* If this be not a dream, if he is right in believ" threads of manly friendship, fond and ing that loving,

pure

and sweet,

carried to degrees hitherto *

and

life-long,

unknown,"

will pene-

strong

These prose passages are taken from " Democratic Vistas," cited

above,

p. 94, note.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN trate the organism of society,

not only giving

tone to individual character, and making

unpre-

cedentedly emotional, muscular, heroic, and refined, " but having deepest relations to general politics

then

are

we perhaps

justified

foreseeing

here the advent of an enthusiasm which shall rehabilitate

them a

those

spiritual

outcast

by giving of an environment atmosphere, healthy emotions, wherein to instincts,

recognised and expand at liberty and purge away the grossness and the madness of their pariahdom ?

This prospect, realised

like all ideals,

experience,

until they are

may seem

fantastically

Moreover, the substance of

visionary.

human

would perhaps be fana" adtical to expect from Whitman's chivalry of hesiveness," a more immaculate purity than was nature

mixed that

amativeattained by the mediaeval chivalry of ness." Nevertheless, that mediaeval chivalry, the great emotional product of feudalism, though it fell short of its own aspiration, bequeathed in-

good to modern society by refining and In like clarifying the crudest of male appetites. manner, this democratic chivalry, announced by calculable

Whitman, may be destined

to absorb, control,

and

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

more mysterious, apparently which we know to be widely

elevate those darker,

abnormal appetites, diffused and ineradicable

human

the ground-work of

nature.

Returning from the dream, the vision of a future possibility, it will, at any rate, be conceded 1

that

Whitman

has founded

enthusiasm which binds

upon a natural

man

comradeship, the to man in fervent

Eliminating classical associations of corruption, ignoring the perplexed questions of a guilty passion doomed by, law and

love,

basis.

he begins anew with sound and primitive humanity. There he discovers popular antipathy to

failure,

"a superb

friendship, exalte, previously unknown." " it waits, and has been perceives that always

waiting, latent in all men."

ment,

and uncow^ed by any thought of touch upon the matter, chaste and whole-

fearless,

evil, his

some

and

aspiring,

reveal

restoring in all innocence to

its

His method of treat-

the

human

possibility life

a portion"

alienated or unclaimed moral birthright.

were well to close upon this note. The half, and as the Greeks said, is more than the whole It

;

the time has not yet come to raise the question whether the love of man for man shall be elevated

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

through a hitherto unapprehended chivalry to nobler powers, even as the barbarous love of man for

woman

moment

once was. deficient

This question at the present in

actuality.

cannot be invited to entertain

it.

The world

THE

passages which have been quoted in illus" tration of Whitman's views regarding man and

the universe, and the paramount importance of self or personality, leaves

no doubt as to how he

must have treated the subject of " Democracy." The inscription placed upon the forefront of "

Leaves of Grass," contains this paragraph

Nor

cease at the

theme

of One's-Self.

I speak the word of

the modern, the word EN-MASSE.

In another place, he says

My comrade

For you, to share with me two greatnesses inclusive and more resplendent,

The greatness

Love and Democracy

a third one, rising

and the greatness

Religion.

Whitman's

" noncomrade, the athlete, the

chalant and natural," the "powerful uneducated person," whom his heart desires, enters into full

enjoyment of

self

through love and

liberty,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

both blending in that sublimer conception of the cosmos and our place in it, which forms the

groundwork of religion. What the word " En-Masse

man

means

for

Whit-

expressed at large throughout his writings. It corresponds to another of his chosen phrases, is

the divine average," " ever the most precious in the common." An exact light is thrown upon it

by the following passage

I speak the pass-word primeval

By God

I will accept

I give the sign of

nothing which

counterpart of on the

all

Democracy t

cannot have their

same terms.

Thus Democracy implies the absolute equality of heritage possessed by every man and woman in the

good and

evil of this

It also involves

life.

the conception that there is nothing beautiful or noble which may not be discovered in the

human

simplest structure

being.

physical

Whoever you any part

are of

how superb and how

and pulsate

your body, or

passions which throb

in the individual

Starting from

divine

it.

As regards emotions and

As regards

Paumanok,"

14.

Walt Whitman,"

33.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Wherever the human heart beats with

terrible throes out of

its ribs.

Whoever " and

wherever

words

in these quotations.

itself

august

;

in its life-beats.

are the emphatic

The human body

the heart has tragedy implicit It does not signify ivliose body,

Here, there, and everywhere, the seeing eye finds majesty, the sentient intelligence detects the stuff of drama. or ivliose heart.

The same

sphere of Nature. in

special

applied to the whole Miracles need not be sought

principle

occurrences,

startle us out of our ordinary

the universe

way

of regarding

* :

To me, every hour

of the light

and dark

a miracle,

a miracle, of the surface of the earth Every square yard the same,

Every inch of space

Every cubic

foot of the interior

spear of grass

Every women, and

all

All these to

point

this

which

phenomena

spread with

swarms with the same

the frames, limbs, organs of that concern them,

;

men and

are unspeakable miracles.

science

democratic ideal

for *

shakes science

"Miracles.'

hands with the proves that

the

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

smallest atom, the most insignificant vibrio, the

most repulsive microbe, partakes of the universal life no less than do the so-called lords of creation.

shudder at islands over-

starry heavens, or tg

whelmed by

gaze upon the

are not forced to

volcanic throes, in order to spy out

the marvellous.

Wonders

are always present in the material world as in the spiritual * :

morning-glory at

my window

satisfies

me more

than the

we but

stretch

metaphysics of books.

The

heroic lies within our reach, if

a finger forth to touch

and hook-and-ladder ropes no less the Gods of the antique wars ; Minding their voices peal through the crash of destruction, Their brawny limbs passing safe over charred laths their Lads ahold to

of fire-engines

me than

white foreheads whole and unhurt out of the flames.

Whitman

expels miracles from the region of mysticism, only to find a deeper mysticism in the world of which he forms a part, and miracles in

commonplace occurrences.

dethrones the

gods of old pantheons, because he sees God everywhere around him. He discrowns the heroes of * " Walt Whitman," 154.

t Ibid. 41.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

myth and romance but greets their like again among his living comrades. What is near to his ;

beneath his

side,

feet,

upon the

men and women he

him, in the

trees around

consorts with,

bears comparison with things far off and rarities

imagined

* :

I believe a leaf of grass

less

than the journey-work of

the stars

And

the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heayen

And

I could come every afternoon of

life

to look at the

farmer's girl boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking shortcake.

the faculty of the seer, of one who has understood the wonder of the world, whose It

eyes

below

pierce

the

divinity in all that lives

planet

surface,

recognise

and breathes upon our

Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all

From

;

the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of

gold-coloured light;

But

I paint

myriads of heads, but paint no head without

nimbus

of gold-coloured light

From my hand, from

the brain of every

man and woman

streams, effulgently flowing for ever. *

"Walt Whitman,"

31.

its

;

Leaves of Grass,"

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

of into the region thought o o we find the elements of dignity and

Pursuing o this plastic art,

line of

beauty apparent in

manhood

shapes of sane and healthy

all

* :

The expression of the face balks accounts But the expression of a well-made man appears not only ;

in his

face,

in his limbs

his hips

and

joints also, it

and wrists

curiously in the joints of

;

It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist

and knees

The

him

;

strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the

cotton and flannel.

dress does not hide

him pass conveys more

see

much

as the best poem, perhaps

;

You

linger to see his back,

and the back

of his neck

and

shoulder-side.

Minor passages from Whitman's writings might be culled in plenty, which illustrate these general

rich

subjects indicated for the sculptor or the painter, glowing

principles.

peculiarly

with his own religious sense of beauty inherent in the simplest folk

The beauty of all adventurous and daring persons, The beauty of wood-boys and wood-men, with untrimmed faces. *

" "

sing the Body Electric," 2. of the Broad Axe," 3 ; " Walt Whitman," 33

Song

their clear,

;

ibid. 13,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Coming home with the silent and dark-cheeked bush-boy riding behind him at the drape of the day.

The negro holds

firmly the reins of his four horses

sways underneath on

The negro that

its

tied-over chain

the block

;

steady and

drives the dray of the stone-yard

he stands, poised on one leg on the string-piece His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast, and loosens tall

;

over his hip-band is calm and commanding his hat away from his forehead ;

His glance

The sun

falls

he tosses the slouch of ;

on his crispy hair and moustache

falls

on the

black of his polished and perfect limbs.

Detached from their context, the paragraphs which I have quoted suffer from apparent crudity and paradox.

Whitman's poems have

elsewhere

only by absorbing

copious

draughts,

submitting to his manner and sympathising with his mood, that a conception can be formed of the wealth with which he scatters plastic suggestions, and of the precision

and

said,

with which

down

he notes

line

colour.

The essence of the democratic

Whitman

helps us

sufficiently indicated.

spirit, so far as

understand

The divine

it,

has been

nature and

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

humanity is everywhere, if we can penetrate the husk of commonplace and reach the poetry of degrees in its manifestation. Special revelations, as in the life of Buddha or of Christ, for instance, do not rank things.

There

the same

miracle

are, indeed,

with

class

of the

the

sunrise."

ever

recurring

The heroism of an

performing his duty, has not exactly the same moral quality, the same com-

engine-driver,

plexity of spiritual forces in play together at one moment, as the self-dedication of Menoi-

keus

for the welfare

of his native city,

or the

by Cratinus and Aristosave Athens from a godsent

oblation of their lives

demus

in order to

plague.

The pioneer of democratic enthusiasm wishes mainly to remind the world that our eyes have too long been blinded to one cardinal truth

and beauties, wherever quality, and their essence

the truth that virtues found,

are of

Whitman insists upon this truth equally divine. in a passage, which sounds paradoxical, but the grotesqueness of which

calculated to arouse

intelligence :* *

Walt Whitman,"

41.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Three scythes at harvest whizzing in a row from three lusty angels with shirts bagged out at their waists The snag-toothed hostler, with red hair, redeeming sins past ;

and to come, Selling all he possesses, travelling on foot to fee lawyers for his brother, and sit by him while he is tried for forgery.

The resplendent manhood of Michael, "

Raphael,

armoury,"

from

starred

Jehovah's

gorgeous with of the that quality

of like

Gabriel,

Do what we

our imagination cannot transcend the stalwart strength of thews three reapers/

and sinews. grace,

gift

will,

can clothe this strength with with ethereal charm, inspire it

with ideal fancy, wrap

But the

mystery. the man remains

around

beautiful,

strong

religious

body of

for art.

spirit of Christ revives in

the

the central fact 4

manner, the

poor,

ugly drudge,

despised

arid

rejected

Paul " of presence weak, of speech men," contemptible/' who devotes his substance and like

his time to support and, if possible, to save

erring brother.

This piercing through this

gauds and trimmings,

unmasking and unbaring of appearances,

this recognition of divinity in all things,

the

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN the

secret

democratic

different from he said " Inasmuch

altogether

when

spirit.

what

self-sacrifice

through

significance if

we extend

meant

as ye have done

doctrine

and

not

Jesus

to one of the least of these, ye do

Nor does the 'supreme

unto me."

of redemption lose

suffering

from One, imagined

a pitiful and condescending God, to

all

who

for

a worthy cause have endured humiliation, pain, an agonising death. Not to make Christ less,

but to make him the chief of a multitude, the type and symbol of triumphant heroism, do we think of the thousands who have died on battlefields,

in torture-chambers, at the

stake,

from

lingering misery, as expiators and redeemers, in whom the lamp of the divine spirit shines clearly for those who have the eyes to see.

This

exposition

democracy

shows

that

Whitman

regarded it not merely as a political phenomenon, but far more as a form of religious enthusiasm. of democracy

the

That being the

case, his

treatment"

includes far-reaching speculations

literature

and

art

required

by the

on the creation of national

sovereign

people,

character,

and on the proper place of what

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

culture

called

noble

scheme

public

education.

These problems have so vital an importance for England and Europe, as well as for America, that to

see

will

be well to discuss them

what

toward

assistance

fully,

and

solution

their

can be found in Whitman's writings. There are two aspects under which the problem of democratic art must be regarded. In the first place,

we have

literature

to ask

under this

what

sort of art, including

democracy requires. To this question Whitman, in his " Democratic Vistas," gives an answer turbid in expression, far from lucid, but pregnant with sympathetic^ intellititle,

gence of the main issues. In the second place, we have to ask what elements are furnished to the artist

by the

which have not already been the classical and feudal forms and

people,

worked? out in

their derivatives.

Whitman attempts

to supply

us with an answer to this second question also,

not in his speculative essays, but in the mass of

imaginative compositions which he designates by His report the name of poems or notes for poems.

upon both topics may be postponed moment, while we revert to the revolution

for

the

effected

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

by the romantic movement of a hundred years behoves us to review the clearance of

ago.

obsolete

obstructions,

and

to survey

the

new

ground gained, whereon our hopes are founded of a future reconstruction.

Delivered from scholastic traditions regarding style and the right subjects to be handled delivered

fervour cratic

pedantry and blind reactionary delivered from dependence upon aristo-

and

from

ecclesiastical authority

sharing

the

emancipation of the intellect by modern science and the enfranchisement of the individual by

new

the poet or the artist is brought immediately face to face with the wonderful fresh world of men and things he has to

political conceptions

and

interpret,

recreate.

The whole of

nature, seen for' the first time with

the whole

sane eyes, of humanity, liberated for the first

time from caste and his

sympathy.

class

Now dawns

distinctions,

upon

his

invite

mind the

beauty, the divinity, which lies enfolded in the simplest folk, the commonest objects presented to

perceives the dignity of humble occupations, the grace inherent in each kind of his senses.

labour well performed.

discovers that love

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

a deity in the cottage no less than in king's chambers not with the supercilious condescenis

;

sion of Tasso's "

Aminta

or Guarini's

Pastor

Fido," but pi'cesens

with a reverent recognition of the deus in the heart of every man and

woman.

make

In order to

Florizel

and Perdita

charming, it is no longer necessary that they nor should be prince and princess in disguise " " need the tale of Daphnis and Chloe now be ;

written with that lame conclusion of lost children restored to wealthy high-born parents. steps forth from the tent of Achilles

Heroism ;

chivalry

the arm-gaunt charger of the knight loyalty is seen to be no mere devotion to a dynasty passionate friendship quits the

from

descends ;

;

brotherhood of Pylades and the dear embraces of Peirithous.

longing lost

None

heroic

us.

and

the

They

everywhere.

of these high virtues chivalrous

contrary,

are

brought

be-

society are find

them

within reach,

instead of being relegated to some remote region in

the past, or deemed the special property of

privileged

classes.

The engine-driver

steering

his train at night over perilous viaducts, the life-

boat man, the

member

of a fire-brigade assailing

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

houses toppling to their ruin among flames these are found to be no less heroic than Theseus grap;

pling the Minotaur in Cretan labyrinths.)

And

with the chivalrous respect for womanhood and weakness, with loyal self- dedication to a prinit is

ciple or cause, with

comradeship uniting

brotherhood, with passion

fit

for

men

tragedy, with

beauty shedding light from heaven on human habitations. They were thought to dwell far off in antique fable or

dim mediaeval legend.

They

appeared to our fancy clad in glittering armour,

plumed and spurred, surrounded with the aureole We now behold them at our of noble birth. house-doors, in the streets and fields around us.

Conversely, our eyes are no longer shut to the sordidness and baseness which royal palaces and princely hearts may harbour to the meanness of the Court of the Valois, to the vulgarity of the

Court of Charles

II.,

to the vile tone of a Prince

Regent, to the dishonour, dishonesty, and dishave always, more loyalty toward women which or

prevailed in so-called good society. This extended recognition of the noble and the less,

lovely qualities in

human

life,

the qualities upon

which pure poetry and art must

seize,

due

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

ioo

partially to

implies

what we

something

commonly supposed

But democracy. than that word

to denote

way

deeply religious

call

new and more

of looking at mankind, a

gradual triumph after so

many

centuries of the

an enlarged faculty for piercing below externals and appearances to the truth and essence of things. God, the divine, spirit

which

Christ's,

immanent

recognised as

and

nature,

the soul and body of humanity not external to these things, not conceived of as creative ;

from outside, or personage, but as

incarnated

any smgle

all-pervasive, all-constitutive,

That everywhere, and inspiring all. and science has democratic philosophy ;

the

contri-

buted in no small measure to produce it. Meanwhile, we need not preach the abandonv

ment of high time-honoured themes.

Why

should

seek to break the links which bind us to the

best

of that

far

past from which

Achilles has not ceased to be a

poem

or statue, because

engine-driver.

fit

we came

subject for

discern heroism in an

Lovely knights and Flora Mac-

donald, Peirithous and Pylades,

and Burd Helen, abide with

King Cophetua all

the lustre of

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

101

and grace and charm. They have nothing because others have gained because

their strength lost

we now acknowledge

that,

the

chivalry,

the

the comradeship, the love, the pathos, which made their stories admirable, are shared

loyalty,

men and women, whose names have

living

not

been sounded through fame's silver trumpet. I have hitherto touched but lightly upon the the sphere of beauty which may be expected from democratic art. Through it we shall be led to discover the infinite varieties of extension q

lovely

form which

belong

peculiarly

the

Caste and high birth have no monopoly of physical comeliness. It -may even be mainpeople.

tained that social conditions render for

them

limited

impossible

display more than a somewhat

Goethe, I think, beauty. defined good society as that which furnished no material

range for

poetry.

paradox to plastic

art,

might apply

this

and say that polished

gentlemen and ladies do not furnish the best How materials for sculpture and painting. hardly shall they who wear evening clothes and ball-dresses enter into the kingdom of the

grandest plastic art

The sculpture of Pheidias,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

102

the fresco

of Buonarroti,

from the body, indications

demand suggestions of the nude. The

sublimest attitudes of repose imply movements There is a determined by specific energy.

beauty in each several kind of diurnal service, which waits to be elucidated. characteristic

The superb scythe

;

poise of the mower, as he swings his

the muscles of the blacksmith, bent for

an unerring stroke upon the anvil the bowed form of the reaper, with belt tightened round his ;

loins

the

;

arm

thresher's

uplifted,

while

swings the flail the elasticity of oarsmen rising from their strain against the wave the jockey's ;

;

grip across his saddle

;

the mountaineer's slow,

the girl at the spinning-wheel, or carrying the water-bucket on her head, or hanging linen on the line, or busied with her

swinging stride

each and every motive of this and the list might be indefinitely pro-

china-closet

kind

;

longed, for

all

trades and occupations have some

distinguishing peculiarity there appears a specific note of grace inalienable from the work per-

formed.

The

artists

of previous ages did not

Indeed, they were wholly neglect this truth. eager to avail themselves of picturesque sugges-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

103

tions on the lines here indicated.

Yet they used these motives mainly as adjuncts to themes of more attractive import, and subordinated them to

what was deemed some

loftier subject.

sequently, these aspects of

life

Con-

did not receive

the attention they deserve and the stores of beauty inherent in human industries have been ;

only partially developed. It is the business of democratic art to unfold them fully. The time

when the noble and beautiful qualities people demand a prominent place among

has come of the

worthy artistic motives. An arduous task lies before poetry and the they are to bring themselves into proper relation with the people not, as is vulgarly arts, if

;

supposed, because the people will debase their standard, but because it will be hard for them

the real dignity, and to satisfy the perceptions and the pure taste of the

to express

keen people.

a danger lest the solution of this problem should suffer from being approached too

There

consciously. tional

What we want

directness,

simplicity,

emo-

open-mindedness, intelligent and keen yet reverent curiosity, the sympathy,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

io 4

combined with the religious attitude toward fact. It will not do to be doctrinaire or

scientific

Patronage and condescension are the

didactic.

worst of evils here. if

The

spirit of

that could descend in some

Count

new

Tolstoi,

Pentecost,

would prepare the world for democratic art. Above all things, the middle- class conception of

must be transcended.

life

Decency, comfort, of maintenance sobriety, appearances, gradual a social ladder which is scaled by progression up tenths of inches, the chapel or the church, the gig or the barouche, the growing balance at one's bankers, the addition of esquire to our of a

red

resolve

rosette

neighbours,

keep if

respectability

well

abreast with

next-door

not ahead of them, in business and all

these

terise the middle-class

are good

name

to our button-hole, the firm

in their

things,

which charac-

man wherever

way.

he appears, It were well that the

But people should incorporate these virtues. there are corresponding defects in the bourwhich have to be steadily rejected unwillingness to fraternise, an incapacity

geoisie

an for

comradeship, a habit of looking down on so-called inferiors, a contempt for hand-labour, a confusion

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

105

of morality with prejudice and formula, a tendency to stifle religion in the gas of dogmas and dissenting shibboleths, an obstinate insensibility

Snobbery and Pharisaism,

to ideas.

the middle-class to

or another, taint

and

Self-righteousness ostrich-fear corrode

personal

it.

one form its

core.

egotism

and

need to deliver our

from these besetting sins, and to rise above them into more ethereal atmosphere. The man of letters, the artist, who would fain prove himsouls

adequate to democracy in its noblest sense, must emerge from earthy vapours of complacent and decaying self and artificial circumstance self

feudalism.

his privilege to be free,

and

It is his function to find a represent freedom. voice or mode of utterance, an ideal of form, .

on a par with nature delivered from unscientific canons of interpretation, and

which

shall be

with mankind delivered from obsolescent

class-

distinctions.

The most perplexing branch of the inquiry has to

What

affronted,

when we ask the

kind of literature and art

by democracy

How

question

demanded

art to prove its

by satisfying the needs and

power

moral aspirations

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

106

who

of the people

are sovereign in a democratic

age?

The conditions under which

art exists at the

render a satisfactory answer to In the past this question well-nigh impossible.

time

present

epochs, Greek,

XI V.,

Louis

Mediaeval,

Elizabethan,

Italian,

Persian, Japanese, the arts

had a

and spontaneous rapport with the nations which begat them, and with certain

the

unconscious

central life-force

moment central

their

of those

aristocratic,

or monarchic, as in France ;

;

England

;

the

Whether that

flourishing.

energy was

mediaeval Europe sance Italy or

nations

Hellas

;

or religious, as in

or intellectual, as in Renaisnational,

Elizabethan

widely diffused like a fine gust

of popular intelligence,

as in

Japan

;

signified

Art expressed what the comparatively people had of noblest and sincerest, and was little.

No abrupt division appreciated by the people. separated the nation from the poets who gave a voice to the nation. The case is altered now. On

the one hand

populations,

and

we have huge

trained

money-making,

uncultivated

mechanical

industries

unwieldy

aggregated

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

distributed over vast tracts of imper-

cities or

subdued

fectly

107

territory,

racial

geneous

composed of hetero-

omnium

the colluvies

elements,

gentium, reduced by commerce and science and politics to a complex of shrewdly-acting, keenly

dumbly-thinking personalities, bound together by superficial education in the commonest rudiments of knowledge, without strong

trafficking,

national notes bias

specific

cosmopolitan

and without

toward a particular form of

expression.

difference,

the

men

other

hand

letters,

sculptors, architects, living

have

painters,

poets,

the most

for

any self-

part

upon the traditions of the past, working these up into new shapes of beauty with power and subtlety,

but

masses, of

taking

direct

hold

the

whom

they are contentedly ignorant, manifesting in no region of the world a marked national type of utterance, embodying no work, destined apparently to bequeath to the future an image of the nineteenth century in its confused Titanic energy, religion in

their

diffused culture, Is

and mental

chaos.

Democratic Art possible

stances

Can we

hope

in these circum-

that

the

men who

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

io8

write poems, paint pictures, carve statues, shall enter once again into vital rapport with the

people who compose the nations the people who are now so far more puissant and important than thev ever were before in the world's history

the real

Is there life

to be

any place

of the future

to realise the

dream of Dupont

satirical dialogue

for

art

we about De Musset's

are in.

Sur deux rayons de

fer

un chemin magnifique

Paris a Peking ceindra ma republique. La, cent peuples divers, confondant leur jargon,

Feront une Babel d'un colossal wagon. La, de sa roue en feu le coche humanitaire

Usera jusqu'aux os les muscles de la terre. Du haut de ce vaisseau les hommes stupefaits

verront qu'une

Le monde

mer de choux et de navets. comme une ecuelle

sera propre et net

;

L'humanitairerie en fera sa gamelle, Et le globe rase, sans barbe ni cheveux,

Comme un In

grand potiron roulera dans

a word, do

the people, in

which

les cieux.

this

democratic

capable of evoking a great art from the sympathy of men of genius ? Or is art destined to subside lower age,

possess

qualities

are

and lower into a kind of Byzantine decrepitude, as the toy of a so-called cultivated minority ?

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

109

whether Whitman

will help

It is questionable

us to see light in these perplexities. Yet he has a burning belief in democracy and, what ;

more, he is one of the very few great writers of our epoch who was born among the people,

who

lived

with

who understood and who dedicated

the

people,

and loved them thoroughly, his health and energies to their service

time of overwhelming national anxiety.

Whitman was

firmly persuaded that

the real

greatness of a nation or an epoch has never been, arid can never be, tested by material prosperity.

The

mechanical

industries,

wealth

and

strength,

the

expansive vigour, the superabundant population, of a State, constitute its

body

the world, control to

reckon

with

These

will

impose upon the present, and be a fact

only.

for

many

generations.

Yet

these must eventually pass away, and sink into oblivion, unless the race attains to consciousness

and noble

spiritual

life.

Literature

and

art

compose the soul which informs that colossal body with vitality, and which will continue to the

material

exist

after

have

crumbled into

forces

nothingness.

the

race

Hellas lives

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

Homer, Pheidias, ^Eschylus Israel, the Prophets and the Psalms the Middle

ideally in

;

Ages,

Dante

But where

Feudalism,

Phoenicia,

survives

Nothing

because

ness,

;

where

symbolise lacked

they

Shakespeare. is

Carthage

their

great-

and

ideas

ideal

utterance.

America,

Whitman

conditions of a puissant

the

finds

nation

;

not find the spirit__of a nation.

material

but he does

The body

growing larger and grander every day, ever acquiring fresh equipments and more

there, for

powerful appliances. Meanwhile the soul, the ideality of art and literature, commensurate with this gigantic frame,

wanting.

Viewed, to-day, from a point of

view

sufficiently

over-

arching, the problem of humanity all over the civilised world is social and religious, and is to be finally met and treated by

The priest departs, the divine literatus comes* Never was anything more wanted than, to-day, and here in The States, the poet of the modern is wanted, or the great

literature.

literatus of the

These and

tion to the

modern. f

all

other italics are mine

main points as

;

intended to direct atten-

conceive them, in

quotations from

Whitman. f

This and the

Vistas."

following extracts are taken

from "Democratic

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

A lot of our religion ? he asks. churches, sects, &c., the most dismal phantasms I know, usurp the name of religion." What

What

our national prosperity

cian's serpent in the

serpents serpent,

fable ate

and money-making

up is

remaining to-day sole

The magi-

all

the other

our magician's master of the

field."

What to

" ?

does our huge material expansion amount It is as if we were somehow being en-

dowed with a vast and more and more thoroughly appointed body, and then

left

with

little

or no

soul."

What

are our cities

Sahara appears grotesques,

" ?

these cities

malformations,

meaningless antics." What is our boasted

dry and flat crowded with petty sort of

phantoms,

playing

Do you

culture

term that perpetual, pistareen, paste-pot work " American art, American drama, taste, verse ? Instead of poets corresponding to the pitch and " a parcel of dandies vigour of the race, he sees

and ennuyees, dapper .abroad,

who

flood us

little

gentlemen

from

with their thin sentiment

of parlours, parasols, piano-songs, tinkling rhymes,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

ii2

the

five-hundredth importation, or whimpering

and

crying about something, aborted conceit after another, in

occupied

dyspeptic

chasing

and

for

one ever

amours with dyspeptic

women. "* After this fashion, with superfluous reiteration,

and considerable his

Whitman

pours forth deep-felt conviction of America's spiritual asperity,

inadequacy.

But what does he demand

lieu of those

"most dismal phantasms, which usurp the name of religion"; in lieu of" the magician's serpent, "

" in lieu of the Sahara of money-making " " in lieu of frivolous and petty cities paste -pot ;

;

and

work,"

dapper

little

gentlemen,"

and

rhymes," and dyspeptic amours Democracy in the cradle, in its stronghold, as tinkling

seems,

" ?

infected with these congenital diseases.

Let us attempt to analyse what he proposes, and how he thinks the vital forces of the future are to be developed. Whitman maintains that the cardinal elements * " Dyspeptic amours with dyspeptic women," is a fine motto for the American Society novel. So is another of Whitman's phrases " The sly settee and the adulterous, unwholesome couple," for the :

modern French

novel.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

113

of national greatness are robust character, inde-

pendent personality, sincere religiousness. He contends that the democratic idea, properly grasped, and systematically applied to conduct, will suffice to reconstitute society upon a sound basis,

and

to supply the

modern nations with the

ideality they lack.

all this,

and these lamentable conditions, to breathe into

them the breath recuperative of sane and heroic life, I say a new founded literature, not merely to copy and reflect existing not only to amuse, surfaces, or pander to what is called taste pass

away

time, celebrate the beautiful, the refined, the past,

or exhibit technical, rhythmic, or grammatical dexterity

a literature underlying

but

religious, consistent with science,

life,

handling the elements and forces with competent power, teaching and training men and, as perhaps the most precious of its results,

achieving the redemption of

woman

out of those

millinery, and every kind of dyspeptic depletion and thus insuring to The States a strong and sweet female race, a race of perfect mothers is

incredible holds

what

and webs

of silliness,

needed.

In culture, as

at present exists, the forces

are alien and antagonistic to democracy. fore

Whitman

attacks

polemical argument Dominion strong

There-

vigorously in a long

the

body's

;

dominion stronger

the

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

H4 mind's.

What

has

filled,

and

fills

to-day our intellect, our

The fancy, furnishing the standards therein, is yet foreign. idea to the are included great poems poisonous Shakespeare of the pride and dignity of the common people, the life-blood Democracy. The models of our literature, as we get it from other lands, ultramarine, have had their birth in courts, of

and basked and grown in castle sunshine; all smells of princes' favours. Of workers of a certain sort, we have, indeed, plenty, contributing after their kind

;

many

elegant,

many learned,

all

But, touched by the national test, or tried by complacent. the standards of Democratic personality, they wither to ashes. I say I

have not seen a single writer,

not, that has confronted the active, pervading,

artist, lecturer,

voiceless,

what

but ever erect and

underlying will and typic aspiration of the

land, in a spirit kindred to itself.

Culture is

good enough

its

way

;

not what forms a manly personality, a sound

and simple and carried

faith.

"As now

taught, accepted, not the are out, processes of culture

rapidly creating a class of supercilious

who

believe in

nothing f

self in countless

but

Shall a

man

infidels,

lose

him-

masses of adjustments, and be so

shaped with reference to

this,

that,

and the

simply good and healthy, and brave parts of him are reduced and chipped away, like the bordering of box in a garden ? You can

other, that

the

cultivate corn

and

roses,

and orchards

;

but

who

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN shall cultivate the primeval forests, the

115

mountain

peaks, the ocean, and the tumbling gorgeousness

of the clouds

Lastly,

the readily given reply

that culture only seeks to help, systematise, arid put in attitude the elements of fertility and

power, a conclusive reply useful to democracy

The only culture

bound to aim

less at polish

and refinement of taste than at the bracing of " character. It must have for its spinal meaning the formation

of typical personality of character,

eligible to the

uses of the high average of

and not

restricted

masses.

by conditions

The best culture

will

men

ineligible to the

always be that of

the manly and courageous instincts, and loving

and of

perceptions,

self-respect."

Since you cannot cultivate the primeval forests,

and

you must study and assimilate them. Since the people do not need to be refined in so forth,

taste,

but to be braced in character, you must

penetrate

character

their

and reproduce

The right formative influences modern literature and art have therefore to

ideal conceptions. for

be sought

the

people

principles of independence

themselves

and

;

the

equality, of free-

dom, brotherhood, and comradeship, which are

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

inherent in democracy, and by right of which democracy enfolds, a religious ideal comparable to the spiritual liberty of the Gospel. Did you,

friend, suppose

too,

tions, for politics, or for a party

Democracy was only for

name

I say

elec-

Democracy

may pass on and come to its flower and fruits in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between men, and their beliefs in lieligion, Literature, colleges and schools Democracy in all public and private only of use there that

life,

and in the

Army and Navy.

have intimated that, as

a paramount scheme, it has yet few or no full realisers and I do not see, either, that it owes any serious believers. thanks to noted propagandists or champions, or has been essentially helped,

though often harmed, by them

not yet, there or anywhere, the fully received, the fervid,, I submit, therefore, that the fruition of the absolute faith. on Democracy aught like a grand scale, resides altogether in is

the future.

Meanwhile,

for those

who

believe that national

greatness can only be tested by the spirit which a people manifests, it remains to fix attention firmly

on the permanent and indestructible significance of arts and letters :

The

literature, songs, aesthetics, '&c.,

of a

country are of

importance principally because they furnish the materials suggestions of personality for

the

and enforce them in a thousand

women and men of effective ways.

and

that country,.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN But what has

117

done to strengthen the personality of the millions of America ?

When

culture, as yet,

mix with these interminable swarms

of alert turbu-

mechanics,

clerks, good-natured, independent and of fresh idea this mass of so at the men, young persons lent,

citizens,

and so proud, a singular awe falls upon me. I with feel, dejection and amazement, that among our geniuses and talented writers or speakers, few or none have yet really

free, so loving

spoken to this people, or created a single image-making work or absorbed the central spirit

that could be called for them

and the

idiosyncrasies

which are

theirs,

and _ which, thus,

highest ranges, so far remain entirely uncelebrated, un-

expressed.

Yet of

our

have dreamed, merged in that hidden-tangled problem fate, whose long unravelling stretches mysteriously

through time dreamed out, portrayed, hinted already a little or a larger band a band of brave and true, unprecedented yet

armed and equipped

rated, it

may

be,

at every point

different dates

north, or east, or west

and

the members sepastates, or south or

a year, a century but always one compact in

Pacific or Atlantic

here, and other centuries there

soul, conscience-conserving, God-inculcating, inspired achievers,

not only in Literature, the greatest art, but achievers in all a new, undying order, dynasty, from age to age transart mitted a band, a class, at least as fit to cope with current years, our dangers, well, in

feudal,

armour or priestly

needs, as those who, for their times, so in cowl, upheld

world.

offset

and made chivalry,

illustrious,

indeed,

the

those

vanquished countless knights, and the old altars, abbeys, all their priests, ages and strings of ages, a knightlier and more sacred cause

to-day demands, and

shall supply, in

New

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

World, to and tally

grander work, more than the counterpart them.

larger,

have followed Whitman in his polemic against the culture of his country and this cen-

tury.

far I

Many

his

utterances will

prophetic

appear inapplicable to Europe. Yet democracy, whether we like it or not, has to be faced and accepted in the Old as well as the

New

World.

Here, therefore, as across the Atlantic, democracy is

bound

to produce

an ideal of

"prove the most tremendous "

Here, as there,

been

humanity,

bends

there, the people

humiliated,

low,

And

superiors."

common

which

poems

deferential,

acknowledging

of time."

failure

long enough have the people

listening

own, or to

its

here,

yet,

have arrived at empire.

no longer possible to apostrophise them words of Campanella's famous sonnet

It is in the

The people is a beast of muddy brain That knows not its own strength, and therefore stands Loaded with wood and stone the powerless hands Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein ;

;

One kick would be enough to break the chain But the beast fears, and what the child demands It does nor its own terror understands, ;

;

Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN Most wonderful

And Its

gags

with

itself

its

own hand

gives itself

119

it ties

death and war

For pence doled out by kings from its own store. own are all things between earth and heaven '";

But To

this it

tell this

knows not truth,

;

and

one arise

him unforgiven.

it kills

In Europe, again, as in America, the founts of earlier inspiration are failing.

Classical antiquity

and romance cannot supply perennial nutriment for modern art. The literary revolution which

marked the advent of the romantic and the scientific

genius, dethroned

and threw the Science,

the

face

nature.

those

sanctuary of

elder deities

the spirit open.

democracy, brings man with nature, and with God in

sister

more ethereal

spirituality

than has

yet been dreamed of begins to penetrate our conceptions of the universe, of law, of duty, of

human

rights

and

destinies.

Art and

literature,

they are to hold their own, must adapt themselves to these altered conditions. They must if

have a faith

and their

not in their

in their several styles

own

excellence as art,

and rhythms

but in

mission and their power to present the

puissance of the age,

its religion

and

its character,.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

120

with the same force as the Greek sculptors pre rented paganism and the Italian painters presented

mediaeval

catholicity.

ascend to this endeavour they are

cannot

If they lost.

Whit-

Literature, strictly considered," says

man, "has never recognised the People, and, whatever may be said, does not to-day I know nothing more rare, even in this country, estimate and reverent appreciation of the People of their measureless wealth

vthan a ^

fit

scientific

of latent power and capacity their vast ',

contrasts of lights

and shades, with,

artistic

America,

emergencies, and a certain breadth of historic grandeur, of peace or their

entire

reliability

the vaunted samples of book-heroes, or any haut-ton coteries, in all the records of the world." war, far surpassing

This

assertion

all

support by " Prothe great American War. bably no future age can Unow, but I well know, how the gist of this fiercest and most resolute of

reference

the

world's

sively in the

warlike contentions resided exclu-

unnamed, unknown rank and

and how the brunt of all

proceeds

essential

purposes,

its

file

;

labour of death was, to

Volunteered."

Grand

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

common

121

accomplished and convincing growth, prophetic of the future proof undeniable to sharpest sense of perfect beauty, stock

the

;

tenderness,

and

Greek, nor

Roman

pluck, that never feudal lord, nor

breed yet rivalled." now understand what Whitman means by " the divine average "; why he exclaims " Ever

the most precious in the common. Ever the fresh breeze of field, or hill, or lake is more than any palpitation of fans, though of ivory, and redolent

with perfume

;

and the

air

more than the

costliest perfumes."

Finally, something

must be

said abqut

man's attitude towards the past.

Whit-

His polemic

against contemporary culture, his firm insistence " the mind, which alone upon the fact that builds

for like is

the permanent

itself,"

haughtily builds and that consequently a great nation

America, a

bound

to find

edifice,

new principle like Democracy, " to its own ideal expression or

prove the most tremendous failure of time" all this may blind us to his reverence for the arts

and

and of ages which have easy it would be to assume

literatures of races

How passed away. a contempt for history in

Whitman

clear

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

122

enough to students of his writings. From the pages which he dedicates to the use and value of bygone literatures it will be sufficient to extract the following paragraph :

Gathered by geniuses of

city, race, or age,

and put by them

in the highest of art's forms, namely, the literary form, the

peculiar combinations,

and the outshows

and age,

modes

its

particular

its faiths,

passions,

of that city, race,

of the universal attributes

heroes, lovers

and gods, wars,

and

traditions,

struggles, crimes, emotions, joys (or the subtle spirit of these),

having been passed on to us to illumine our its if

experiences

taken away, nothing

houses could

This that

own

selfhood and

what they supply, indispensable and

make up

else

all the

highest,

world's boundless store-

us or ever return again.

an emphatic re-assertion of the principle dominion strong is the body's dominion is

;

stronger

but for

all

the mind's."

Not

humanity and

for

all

an age or nation, time,

abides the

truth that material strength and greatness are but bone, and thew, and sinew literature and ;

art constitute the soul. poets,

thinkers,

Therefore the prophets,

builders,

sculptors,

painters,

musicians of past ages and of foreign lands, abide imperishable, shining like suns and stars fixed in

the

firmament

man's

immortal

mind.

Stupendous are they, indeed, but distant, un-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

123

appealing indirectly to modern hearts and brains. Our admiration for them, the use

familiar

;

we make

of them, the lessons

must not degrade us it

learn from them,

into the frivolity of imitative

culture.

that

have to bear steadfastly in mind our duty to emulate them by creating

corresponding monuments of our own spirit, suns and stars which shall shine with them " in the spaces of that other heaven, the kosmic intellect,

the soul."

powerful and resplendent ones ye were, in your not for rather for her foes, but atmospheres, grown America, !

the feudal and the old

while our genius is Democratic and Yet could ye, indeed, but breathe your breath of life

modern. into our

New

World's nostrils

not to enslave us, as now, but,

for our needs, to breed a spirit like

your own

perhaps (dare

what yourselves have say ?) left On your plane, and no less, but even higher and wider, I will I meet and measure for our wants to-day and here. demand races of orbic bards, with unconditional, uncomproit

to dominate, even destroy,

mising sway. west!

Come

forth, sweet democratic despots of the

Thus, the upshot of Walt Whitman's message that the people, substantial as they are, and

the qualities which might inspire a world-literature, have up to the present time full

all

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

124

found no representative in poetry and art. The sacer vates of democracy has not appeared. " The fruition of Democracy, on aught like a

grand

scale, resides altogether in

This

not

Whitman

the

place

has himself

fulfilled

the future." inquire

how

far

the conditions of

writing for the people. Judged by his acceptance in America, he can hardly be said to have suc-

ceeded in his beast there,

own

if it

The many-headed has not literally " trampled him lifetime.

in gore," turns a deaf ear to his voice,

and treats

him with comparative indifference. Hitherto he has won more respect from persons of culture in

Great Britain than from the divine average o

The

States.

VII

WHEX,

at the age of thirty-five, "

Whitman

re-

up the songs of the New World," he had formed the opinion that America and solved

to strike

we have seen, with him is equivalent Democracy demanded a wholly new type of

America, as to

would not do

go on using the rhymes and metres and stanzas which had become stale in the Old World, and were poetry.

for the poet to

being imitated by feeble folk of culture on the Themes so vast, a other side of the Atlantic. people so gigantic, a future so illimitable, called for corresponding forms of artistic expression.

But, what was most important, the would-be poet had to assume a new attitude towards literature,

and to regard

his duties

with a different kind of

seriousness.

The

first

edition of

in 1855, after

Leaves of Grass

appeared

two years of anxious preparation.

a thin quarto volume, containing a few of

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

126

Whitman's most important poems, and a long In the preface, which is remarkprose preface. able for fervid eloquence

and cultivated thought,

he expressed his theory of the poetry adapted America. The germ of to Democracy and all his subsequent work, with the exception of

be found in this pregnant not a few of his later poems are

may

Calamus,"

essay,

and

Here, then, expansions of its themes. have in a condensed form what may

simple

we be

those

first

followed entitled

his

called

At the same

poetics."

essays in

poetical

time,

which

literature

the long piece afterwards Whitman " gave a sample of

especially "

Walt

the manner in which he intended to carry his doctrines into practice.

That he was seriously

attempting to create a new style for America, and to suggest, at any rate, what might be left appears from the preHere he says " The face to the edition of 1872. for other bards to perfect,

impetus and ideas urging me, for some years past, to an utterance, or attempt at utterance, of New

World

songs,

and an epic of Democracy, having

already had their published expression, as well as I can expect to give it, in Leaves of Grass/ the '

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN present and future pieces from

127

are really but

the surplusage forming after that volume, or the wave eddying behind it." His main object had,

been attained when the edition of 1867.

in fact,

Drum

Taps," appeared. Later on, in the preface of 1872, he adds; "I have been more anxious, anyhow, to suggest the including

songs of vital endeavour and

and

furnish

something

for

manly races

evolution,

outdoor

than to make perfect rhymes, or reign I ventured from the beginning the parlours.

athletes, in in

my own

way, taking chances, and would keep

on venturing." Following the prose manifesto of 1855, an d it

taking

paragraph by paragraph, we

Whitman's conception of the mocratic bard, and pause from time discuss

to consider

how

may now ideal

closely he approached his

Detime

own Ame-

begins with a panegyric of rica, which is certainly justified by the largeness of that continent, the variety of climates it instandard.

cludes, it.

the

and the teeming populations who inhabit

Still,

methinks, the eagle screams too loudly,

barbaric

opening

strain

too

apparent in this

of jubilation.

The Americans

yawp

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

128

may, indeed, be destined to be "the race of " races but hitherto they have done mighty ;

the furtherance of spirituality, being

for

little

principally occupied with commercial speculation,

wire-pulling at elections, and doubtful doings in

Wall

they have as yet possible that they will never get

For

Street.

achieved,

aught

further than Carthage reflect

what

and the

When we

of old did.

the small theatre of the antique, aimless sleep-walking of the Middle

Ages," to use Whitman's words, bequeathed to us of spiritual revelations, and compare these

with the null or zero of American productivity, we could have preferred a more becoming modesty, or a salutary depression, at the outset. But that is not Whitman's opinion. He has a firm

faith

national

personality,

and

not

daunted by the poverty of national attainment.* And, as we have already seen, he elsewhere confesses

that the

democratic

bard

has

not

appeared. *

It is right to

add that

at the close of his

life,

in conversation

" There is nowhere in the world the Wallace, he observed demonism, the foulness, the corruption we have here in America. But this is the I know that the average bulk en masse is sound.

with

danger."

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN The

first

great quality of the bard

129 faith.

The times straying toward infidelity and confections and persiflage he withholds by steady

faith."

virtue in the

will find a responsive "

Faith

proletariate.

the

of the

antiseptic

pervades the common people and preserves them, they never give up believing, and soul

expecting, and

There

trusting.

scribable freshness

that

inde-

and unconsciousness about an

person that mocks the power of the

illiterate

noblest expressive genius."

The

second

simplicity

and

great

quality

He must

candour.

bard

the

recognise

tHe:fact that others can perceive beauty as well as

he does, but that

his

duty to

seize

upon the facts of the universe and to reveal their inner the abiding relations they life, contain. It is not merely his duty to see, and to invest

rhetorical

present

what he has seen with rhymes and ornaments, but to realise, and to

what "

accuracy.

posing in the least poet

and

has

Without

realised, effort,

how

it is

scenes,

flawless

ex-

done, the greatest

brings the spirit of any, passions, and

with

and without

and

all,

events,

persons,

some i

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

130

more and some

less, to

bear on your individual

character as you hear or read. is

To do

this well

compete with the laws that pursue and

follow time."

Therefore the poet of Democracy will not stop at description or the epic. His " transcendent and new, expression is to be

and not

indirect

direct."

What

that

means,

Whitman

has more fully set forth in the poem " called Introductions," where he contrasts the

mere singer with the

real poet.

The words

of the singers are the hours or minutes of the or dark but the words of the maker of poems are light the general light and dark ;

The maker

poems settles justice, reality, immortality, His insight and power encircle things and the human race, He is the glory and extract, thus far, of things, and of the

human The

race.

singers do not beget

Thus of the

only the Poet begets.

appears that the distinctive faculty bard is intuition into the essential it

penetrative imagination, combined with power of communicating what he has

realities,

the

discovered of vital truth relation

through words.

toward the mere singer

His

that of the

Imagination to the Fancy.

The advice given by Whitman

to one

who

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

131

would place himself in the proper attitude for making poems, and presumably also for comprehending them when made, is contained in the following characteristic paragraph. This

what you

shall

Love the earth and sun and the

despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your

animals,

hat to nothing

known

unknown, or to any man or number

men

go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young, and with the mothers of families re-examine

you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not all

;

only in

its

words, but in the silent lines of

and between the lashes joint of

your body. unneeded work. He

its lips

and

face,

your eyes, and in every motion and The poet shall not spend his time in of

shall know that the ground is already and manured; others may not know it, but he plough'd He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall shall.

master the trust of everything he touches all attachment.

and

shall

master

The next great quality of the bard is a recog" The messages of great poems nition of equality. to each

man and woman

are,

come to us on equal

terms, only then can you understand us.

We are

no better than vou, what we enclose you enclose,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

132

He will be you may enjoy." generosity and affection, and for

what we

enjoy,

"marked

for

Liberal and open to

encouraging competitors."

according preference to no one class, no special subject, 110 single element of the State. The bard will not be intimidated by exact

all influences,

but will find in

science,

ment and

support." "

the supernatural

;

always his encourage-

Before his enlightened eyes It is departs as a dream."

the body, the soul, that exhibit and these miracles are ever-recurrent,

only nature, miracles

life,

Humanity must be studied and

innumerable.

ought to be accordIt ing to some preconceived canon of perfection. must be recognised that God is ultimately respon-

represented as

sible for

it is,

everything

not as

discover in the universe.

Whatever would put God

in a

poem

or system

of philosophy as contending against some being or influence, is of no account."

Furthermore, following the same line of thought, fiction

ness."

and romance disappear before "

genuine-

soon as histories are properly told,

no more need of romances." of the

human form

The actual beauty

superior to

tions of the plastic fancy.

There

wayward is

crea-

no pleasure,

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

133

no joy, beyond that which a healthy soul in a healthy body may daily make its own. The poet will show that riches do not place their possessor at an advantage with regard to real pleasure, real

joy that the ownership of an extensive library does not enable a man to acquire intellectual ;

stores of happiness

who can open and

beyond the scope of any one

read the books

that to be the

;

master of a park, a forest, a picture-gallery, will not help an insensible person to relish natural or beauty. Any one who passes through the park, the the forest, with eyes to see gallery, and senses to perceive, is more the owner of them

aesthetic

than their purchaser,

peradventure he be a

dullard.

Another main requisite of the bardjs "the idea, of politicaJLJiberty." Poets " are the voice and exhibition of liberty." is

Since the bard in question

the Bard of Democracy,

identical proposition,

make

qf_Ainerica

and

also to

may

note that the

himself familiar with the whole

its lands, rivers,

men and women,

amounts to an

and requires no comment.

In this connection, however, poet has to

this

lakes, fauna, flora,

trades, arts, occupations^ &c.

flood himself with the

immediate

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

134

age as with vast oceanic

tides.

he be not

himself the age transfigured, and if to him is not opened the eternity which gives similitude to all periods,

and

locations,

and

processes,

and animate

and inanimate forms, and which is the bond of time, and rises up from its inconceivable vagueness and infiniteness in the to-day,

and

was

w hat

swimming shapes

held by the ductile anchors of life, and makes the present spot the passage from what to

shall be,

representation of this

and commits

wave of an

itself to

the

hour, and this

one of the sixty beautiful children of the wave, let him merge in the general run, and wait his development."

Then

follows a very curious passage regarding

the fundamental constituents of the .true bard,

which must be transcribed Extreme caution

in the author's

words

or prudence, the soundest organic health,

large hope and comparison and fondness for women and children, large alimentiveness and destructiveness and causality,

with a perfect sense of the oneness of nature, and the of the same spirit applied to human affairs, are

propriety called

of the float of the brain of the world to be parts of

the greatest poet from his birth out of his mother's womb, and from her birth out of her mother's.

There are so many different things, and apparently

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN so disparate,

that

it offers

tator.

jumbled together

135

in this sentence

hopeless difficulties to the

commen-

understand indeed what

Whitman

means by

health, aliment iveness,

tiveness.

But how are these

with causality

even destruc-

qualities

combined

Then, again, hope and a fond-

ness for

women and

why are

they coupled with comparison

children are intelligible. ?

But

[It looks

almost as though causality and comparison were borrowed from the jargon of phrenology.] What is meant by a sense of the oneness of nature, and the application of nature's lessons to human For affairs, has already been explained above. the rest, as regards caution or prudence, Whit-

man

in wha.t follows offers a noble interpretation.

Caution seldom goes far enough. It has been c? O thought that the prudent citizen was the citizen

who

applied himself to solid gains, and did well for himself and his family, and completed a lawful debt or crime." life without Whitman, like

Christ in the Gospels, points out that this is

man

in reality very imprudent.

Beyond the independence cf a little sum laid aside for burial-money, and of a few clap-boards around and shingles overhead on a lot of American soil own'd, and the easy dollars

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

136

that supply the year's plain clothing and meals, the melan-

choly prudence of the abandonment of such a great being as

man

is,

to the toss and pallor of years of money-making,

scorching days and icy nights, and all their stifling deceits and underhand dodgings, or infinitesimals of parlours, or shameless stuffing while others starve, and all the

with

all

loss of

their

the bloom and odour of the earth, and of the flowers

and atmosphere, and of the sea, and of the true taste of the women and men you pass or have to do with in youth or middle age, and the issuing sickness and desperate revolt at the close of a life without elevation or naivete (even if you

have achiev'd a secure 10,000 a year, or election to Congress or the Governorship), and the ghastly clatter of a death is the great fraud upon modern and forethought, blotching the surface and system which civilisation undeniably drafts, and moistening with

without serenity or majesty, civilisation

immense

spreads and spreads with such velocity before the reach'd kisses of the soul.

tears the

features

Thus extreme caution

or prudence consists in

living for the soul, immortality, the

life

beyond

the grave, the constitution of a permanent and noble spiritual self, the eternal things and abiding relations of the universe.

Whitman means by

religion

It ;

is,

and

fact,

since

what

we have

returned to this which was the starting-point of our inquiry, I cannot refrain from inserting here a long paragraph

(from the Preface, 1872), in which he expounds at length his views regarding the religion of the future :

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

137

When

I commenced, years ago, elaborating the plan of my and continued turning over that plan, and shifting it poems, in my mind through many years (from the age of twenty-eight

experimenting much, and writing and abandoning much, one deep purpose underlay the others, and has underlain it and its execution ever since and that has

to thirty-five),

been the religious purpose. Amid many changes, and a formulation taking far different shape from what I at first supposed, this basic purpose has never been departed from in

Not of course to exhibit the composition of my verses. itself in the old ways, as in writing hymns or psalms with an eye to the church-pew or to express conventional pietism, or the sickly yearnings of devotees, but in new ways, and aiming at the widest sub-bases and inclusions of humanity,

and tallying the fresh air of sea and land. I will see (said I to myself) whether there is not, for my purposes as poet, a religion, and a sound religious gernienancy in the average

human

race, at least in their modern development in the United States, and in the hardy common fibre and native yearnings and elements, deeper and larger, and affording

profitable returns

than

mere

all

sects or churches

boundless, joyous, and vital as Nature itself a germenancy that has too long been unencouraged, unsung, almost un-

With

known.

its dotage,

mind)

science, the old theology of the East, long in

begins evidently to die and disappear. and maybe such will prove

science

service

as evidently prepares the

grander theology beautiful.

Time's

young

heir of the

but

West

perfect

lusty

For America, and

way and

for

One

But its

indescribably

offspring loving,

(to

principal

the

new

and wondrous

for to-day, just the

same as

any day, the supreme and final science is the science of God what we call science being only its minister as Democracy

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

138

or shall be also. And a poet of America (I said) must fill himself with such thoughts, and chant his best out of them. And as those were the convictions and aims, for good or bad, is,

of " Leaves of Grass," they are no less the intention of this

volume.

there can be,

opinion, no

sane

and

complete personality, nor any grand and electric nationality, without the stock element of religion imbuing all the other heat in chemistry, invisible itself, but the life so there can be no poetry worthy the name life), that The time has certainly element behind all. without

elements

(like

of all visible

come

to begin to discharge the idea of religion in the

States from

mere

ecclesiasticism,

churches and church-going, and assign position, chiefest

United

and from Sundays and it

to that general

and most indispensable, most exhilarating,

to which the others are to be adjusted, inside of

character and education and

affairs.

The

all

human

people, especially

the young men and women, of America, must begin to learn that religion (like poetry) is something far, far different from

what they supposed.

is,

indeed, too

important to the

pow er and perpetuity of the New World to be consign'd any longer to the churches, old or new, Catholic or Protestant Saint this, or Saint that. It must be consign'd henceforth r

Democracy en masse, and

into the

poems

of the nation.

to literature. It

must enter

must make the nation.

VIII

SPEAKING broadly then, Whitman's conception of the ideal Bard of Democracy implies the following main

qualities or properties.

He must be possessed

of perfect physical health, and the normal appe-

He must

tites

and

vital

sympathy with his own He must have illimitable

age.

confidence.

instincts.

be in large % and nation and his own faith

and optimistic

He must comprehend the heart

of the

people, recognise their nobility, base his trust in

the future upon their sterling virtues and their He must be a passionate lover of spirituality.

men and

liberty, a believer in the equality of all

women

as regards their capacity for comprehend-

ing and enjoying what he comprehends and enjoys. He must derive his aliment and inspiration from science, nature, fact;

aiming at truth and candour;

preferring the genuine tp the fictitious

;

denying

the supernatural, and finding the only divine known to us in things submitted to our percipient

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

i4o

The

senses.

make him

final

result of this attitude will be

and intenser

religious in a higher

degree than any creed or dogma yet has made a

man

As regards

to be.

his special

function in

he must be gifted with imagination penetrative to the soul and life of fundamental

literature,

realities,

and

in his expression

must be as

simple,

as suggestive, as inevitable, as a natural object. He will aim at creating a new and independent vehicle of language, suitable to the quality of his

personal perception. That Whitman described himself in this ideal picture of the bard

or rather, perhaps, that he

strenuously attempted to live up to the conception he in his

had formed, and to exemplify his teaching published works will be apparent to all

who have

studied

him with

With Whitman, when he attention.

regard to physical health, " Leaves of Grass," was almost repulcomposed After the exsively and obtrusively healthy. periences

the war,

his

health

failed

;

but

though there entered a certain wist fulness and subdued tone into his poetry at this period, he " His self-assertion," as never altered its form. Mr.

W. M.

Rossettl observed,

boundless

;

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

141 '

yet not always to be understood as strictly or merely personal to himself, but sometimes as vicarious,

men,

poet speaking on

the

behalf of

all

man and woman." That is The_^I" of Whitman is not merely

and

every

well said.

" " his particular " Ego," but also the personality

of ^tKaF^Democratic create,

and

the same, ances

the

Individual

he strove to

All endowed with vocal organs. must be admitted that the utterideal

self"

would

have

been

more solemn and more impressive, if Whitman had pitched them at a somewhat lower tone.

screams, brags, swears, blusters, asseverates,

bullies,

pulpit-cushion, stamps the " all this blatant ebullience," as

thumps the

platform.

And

been well described, indicates " a fault of debility, not an excess of strength." The it

has

worst thing, and the most obvious, which can " is that it be said against " Leaves of Grass throughout impaired by forcible- feebleness. Partly due, no doubt, to the doctrinaire atti-

tude assumed by the author as the would-be prophet of a new gospel and the founder of a

new method.

Partly due,

also, to

gance of the athletic temperament.

the

arro-

cannot

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

142

but regret that this accent of swagger had not been toned down, since it remains in permanent sublimity of

discord with the essential

Whit-

man's thought, the grandeur of his imagination, and the not unfrequent magnificence of his diction.

the other qualities of the democratic bard, Walt Whitman cannot be said to have

all

own

For expressing America, the length, and breadth, and vastness " These States," he was well equipped by of fallen far short of his

the

Wander -jahren "

During

travel

and of varied

and

into close relations with all kinds of

men

and women.

many

arts

If not in actual excesses, at

by sympathy and observation, he

rate all

manhood.

earlier

crafts,

energy he practised

came

of his

years of

those

ideal.

experiences of

pleasures,

and

with

all

their

abandonments."

life,

anv

sounded

passions, felt

the

pulse of that enormous and promiscuous nationHe fraternised with the people, not in alitv. his birth-place merely, nor in

New all

and

York, but in

New

England or the South, the West, studying

types, selecting from each class of workers

able

craftsmen

those

characteristics

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN which he afterwards fused into Individual."

was

his

143

Democratic

inevitable that he should

leave certain salient qualities out of his account,

and that the in

some

ideal portrait should be defective

and

softening

elevating

spiritually

no man, sincerely studying nature and the world, can avoid the necessity under

traits

for

;

which he

lies

of importing his

own

predilections,

proclivities, personal instincts into the

of his there

art.

For the completion of

never

failed

Whitman

amalgam this

task

large

and

liberal sympathies, the recognition of truth

and

goodness, wheresoever to be found, hearty love, affection of the purest, willingness to share on

equal terms with all his fellows, to learn from the simplest, to discern divinity in the most " the abject, to place himself upon the level of average," and

to ascend therefrom

rose from contact with

invigorated,

able

(as Antaeus

Mother Earth) affront

commune with the thought

the

inspired,

stars

of death.

and

Should

a Hercules of culture, or of any superior creed, be sent to strangle Whitman, the demigod will

have to

lift

him high

in air

above that vital

contract with the ground-pan of humanity.

His

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

144

secret as a democratic bard lies in this

and

living

man, body and soul, bred unenvious commerce with his

unselfish love of

by a generous The faith he preached as a saving kindred. and preservative virtue, and which he discovered, or seemed to discover, abroad among the people, abounded a

in his

robust

own

breast.

confidence,

This

optimism.

and

He was with

and

believing

born with

imperturbable sanguine spirit

Wander-

survived, not only the experiences of his

jahren,

when he must have seen sad things

enough to shake another's confidence, but the

events

dire

saddest

of the

aspects

great

which as

war,

the

daily

also

very

studied

during hospital nurse. occupation Inborn in the man, it was nourished and sushis

tained by

exact

what

learned

universe,

and by

upon that from other

science

about the

that

say,

system

the

interpretation

put

for

him

the

knowledge. Religion grew which have proved poisonous to souls. he showed his Herein, again,

roots

adequacy to his own conception of, the poet. Faith and optimism prevailed against the manifold apparent

inducements to despair of human

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN nature,

and

145

pronounce our world the worst

some unconscious power

possible product of

for

The penetrative imagination he demanded from his poet enabled him to pierce the core of science, and to emerge from the contemplation of evil.

a homogeneous and everlastingly enduring universe into the conviction that no part of it can be

destroyed or unaccounted

for.

That

senti-

mental dream, no sybarite's self-indulgent escape from poignant realities of pain and misery into

vague

visions.

the logical deduction from

them forth, drawn by one who knows the world at least in one case to be good to live in, and who has the facts of the world as science sets

thoroughly absorbed the meaning of its essential and coherent unity. As the test and pledge of Whitman's sincerity, the last period of his life a life

broken in the

sacrifice

for

finest years of

others

manhood by

during the

remains for ever valuable.

Great

self-

War

Instead of shrinking

or quailing under the paralysis and poverty which afflicted him so long, his spirit rose and dilated.

never ceased to love and hope. The religion which he framed in ardent youth and arrogant have adolescence, sustained him to the last.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

146

to be thankful that

was put

to proof in this

way, although we may have wished that one to whom the world owes so much had been spared For no one now can say suffering- and privation. that Whitman's religion was the idle plaything of a lusty, omnivorously enjoying, morally careless, St. Paul exceptionally fortunate child of nature.

spoke one of the deepest truths which have been " ever uttered when he wrote And now abideth :

Faith, Hope,

greatest of greatly,

and

and Love, these these

may go

Love."

sacrificed his life

felt for suffering

tian

humanity.

Whitman

three.

But the

Whitman to

loved

the love

The orthodox

Chris-

in order to discover

that the cardinal virtues can survive the decay of Christian dogma, and inspire one for whom

the cosmic enthusiasm was the sole source of consolation.

WOULD

upon this note, for I have .already declared what I feel to be incontestably Yet it still remains to congreat in Whitman. I

fain close

what way he performed the bard's functions of initiating new forms in literature, sider

and pioneering

an art commensurate with

for

the magnificence of America.

Here he

was

written

serves

nothing

justified

poetry.

"It

inquire

whether

supposing that he had clear that in a certain

and technical sense he did not write poetry, because he did not use metre and rhyme. It is

also

clear

Democratic

that,

Vistas,

except

Specimen

his

Days,

Prefaces,

and

he did not attempt to write prose. he did write prose in " Leaves of Grass forth,

Drum

Paradise Lost," and Lucretius in "

When "

and

Taps," he did so involuntarily, and just " as Dante in the Paradiso," and Milton in the

De Rerum

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

148

Natura," unwillingly wrote prose at intervals. and one flings Therefore, it may be inferred the suggestion with equanimity to cavillers that what he did write in his masterpiece of literature was neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring.

not verse,

not (except

involuntarily) prose.

But

there no poetry outside the region of

rhyme and verse

Was

Sir

Philip Sidney, our accomplished language, so " far wrong in his contention that apparelled

the

critic in

first

verse

poetry

is ;

but an since

excellent poets

ornament,

there

have

and been

no cause

many most

that have never versified, and

now swarm many versifiers who need never " answer to the name of poets ? Are we all wrong in thinking that, when we read Job, the Psalms, the Prophets, the Song of Solomon, in our English version, we are reading the sublimest, the sweetest, the strongest, the most

sensuous poetry that was ever written ? To my mind Whitman did indubitably produce poetry, and poetry of a very high order.

According to the theory he had formed before he began to " strike up the songs of the New

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

149

World," he deliberately rejected rhyme, metre, " the set stanza, all the Ars Poetica" of his In art

exceedingly difficult to break with tradition, to innovate with success.

predecessors.^

And is

doctrine, the obedience to a settled theory,

inimical to pure spontaneous singing.

the

outset

Whitman was hampered

From by

his

* It must be remembered that Whitman protested against his works being judged from the point of view of "literature." He " I have not only not bothered much about style, says moreover form, art, &c., but confess to more or less apathy (I believe I have sometimes caught myself in decided aversion) toward them through:

out, asking nothing of them but negative advantages j^hat they should never impede me, and never under any circumstances, or for their own purposes only, assume any mastery over me.'^ That is a sensible and intelligible account of his theory and practice. Yet he

collected works, "Complete Poems and Prose of Walt of the former often as "Songs," "Chants," " The critic is therefore compelled to treat Carols,'' and so forth.

calls

his

Whitman": he speaks them

as products of art.

Whitman do not

But

this

is just

what the

disciples

In a private letter to the aged master, his friend and biographer, Dr. Bucke, remarks concerning my " Essays Speculative and Suggestive " (in which there was an like

our doing.

essay on Democratic Art, partly incorporated into this study) that Symonds (like the rest) seems to be so mentally and unconsciously

occupied with form that he is more or less blinded to substance." Mr. Robert Buchanan has told us that he was first attracted to Whitman because his work was not "mere literature," because he had broken with the tradition of artistic form. But, for all that, Whitman has form, a very peculiar and individual style, an art of expression which none of his followers not even the genial Edward Carpenter, whose "Toward Democracy" is not only the best interpretation of Whitman's spirit, but also the best imitation of his manner have been able to copy without enfeebling or parodying its characteristics.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

150

system, and he was not quite strong enough to create by a single fiat the new perfect form

he aimed

at.

resolved to rely on rhythm,

and on the coinage of phrases which exactly suit the matter or the

should

emotion to be

expressed.

The

and perfect [phrases he match most delicate and evanescent

countless

invented, to

moods of broad

clear

sensibility,

effects

natural

picture

and

exquisite

beauty,

call

poignant or elusive feelings, attest to his artistic faculty

using

language

vehicle

for

They are hung, like golden medals consummate workmanship and incised form, thought.

rich clusters over every

what he aimed

poem he produced.

above

all,

of in

And,

these phrases are

redolent of the very spirit of the emotions they suggest, communicate the breadth and largeness of the natural things they indicate, essence pitate I

of realities in living words which pal-

and burn

for ever.

do not think

needful to quote examples.

Those who demur and doubt selves to is

embody the

may

an impartial study of

enough

for

address them-

his writings.

me, trained in Greek and Latin

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN in

classics,

151

the literatures of Italy and France

and Germany and England, who have spent life

continuous addiction to

who am

the devotee

beautiful in style

it is

reputation as a

what

enough

critic

literature, is

for

my and

powerful and

to pledge

upon what

have

asserted.

have already admitted that his self-assertion and tumidity are drawbacks to his art. FurI

thermore

must be confessed that the

things, of peoples, of places, he

wont

lists

to make,

exhaust our powers of attention. We tire of uncouth paragraphs, each clause of which begins with " Oh," or " See," " I see," " I hear," " I swear," or

which

Shapes

arise."

long for humour,

almost totally absent in his work, to

relieve its seriousness

are jarred

his

and self-complacency.

ungrammatical constructions

and crude agglutinations of jaw- breaking substantives. His ill-assimilated French or Spanish phrases imported in obedience to the system, because America includes so many nations

hurt our ear. etui,

mon

trottoir,

enfant,

could gladly dispense with

habitans,

and

eleve,

allons,

accouche,

so forth, in compositions

which

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

152

after

English motherLet us, however, be thankful that he are

all

tongue.

written in the

borrow also from the German

did not think

fit

dictionary

Finally,

could desire more of

dramatic power arid a juster sense of composition in creating balanced wholes.

But when

all

this

return to the position,

has

been conceded,

and declare

we be

impregnable and unchallenged, that Whitman, working under the conditions of his chosen style, has produced long series of rhythmic utterances, strung together arid governed by an inner law capable of transposition, augmentation, and diminution at the author's will, which of melody,

have the magnetic charm of nature, the attraction of his own "fluid and attaching" personality. In his happiest moments these periods are perfect poems, to alter which would be to ruin

Not a word

then superfluous not an epithet, but adds to the rhetorical effect and when the climax is attained, our sense of music, them.

;

and

far

more of

vitalising imaginative potency,

is fully satisfied.

Let those who doubt these words, or do not know Walt Whitman's writings, devote them-

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

153

" selves to the careful study of When Lilacs last " in the Door- Yard Bloomed," Vigil Strange I kept

on the Field One Night," "The Singer in the " " A Leaf of Faces," Prison," Sleep-Chasings," " A Word Out of the Sea," and those passages from the poem called " Walt Whitman," which " I am he that walks with begin with the lines the tender and growing night," and " I resign myself to

you

also/'

You

sea

X I

aware how

interpretation of

futile

to attempt a

Walt Whitman.

thing in him which eludes tion.

There

all efforts

full

some-

at descrip-

analytical process can be successfully,

Nor is this the exhaustively applied to him. It springs fault of his students and expositors. As Colonel from the quality of his work. Ingersoll,

said

what

his steadfast friend

and

eulogist,

has

"In everything is

a touch of chaos, lacking called form, as clouds lack form, but not

lacking the splendour of sunrise or the glory of sunset." Then, too, there is a something in his

the spiritual essence, the ethereal, harmonising medium of its many incongruities, which evanesces in the crucible of

poetry, the best of

criticism.

it,

that in writing failed to introduce him

It follows, therefore,

him every one has

adequately to the public. A blowing of the brazen trumpet, or a petty patronage, these are

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

155

the two contradictory errors into which his wellwishers, even though they writers, fall feel

about him.

not

they I

happen to be subtle when they attempt to set forth what sure

whether a

loose,

disjointed

method, the mere jotting down of notes, would not be the best way of illustrating so intangible

And

an author.

then I think of

to express a

many metaphors

irreducible to propositions.

meaning Behemoth, wallowing

in primeval jungles,

bathing at fountain-heads of mighty rivers, crushing the bamboos and the crane-brakes under him,

He is bellowing and exulting in the torrid air. a gigantic elk or buffalo, trampling the grasses of the wilderness, tracking his mate with irreHe

sistible energy.

an immense

tree,

of Ygdrasil, stretching its roots deep

a kind

down

into

the bowels of the world, and unfolding its magic boughs through all the spaces of the heavens.

His poems are even as the rings in a majestic oak or pine.* He is the circumambient air, in

which

float

shadowy shapes,

and palm-groves *

Whitman

said to J.

;

rise

mirage-towers,

try to clasp their visionary

W. Wallace

" I have felt to

succession of growths, like the rings of trees."

make my book

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

156

forms

;

all

itself;

they vanish into ether. seas,

lands,

the globe storms,

climates,

forests,

snows, sunshines, rains of universal earth. is

all

nations, cities,

languages,

religions, arts,

He is the beginning creeds, thoughts, emotions. and the grit of these things, not their endings, lees,

and

Then he comes

dregs.

consoler, physician, nurse

to us as lover,

most tender,

;

fatherly,

sustaining those about to die, lifting the children,

and stretching out

What

arms to the young men. the world has he absorbs. For him there his

no schism in the universe, no force opposed to God or capable of thwarting Him, no evil inerais

dicable

by the

no limit

Vice and

aspiration. pities.

soul,

They are

and healed. health false

best.

defective, miserable

tainted,

He knows

;

also

best,

and

shows that what

modesty accounted unclean

and the healthiest of

rather to be cured

that purity

But he

on human

he rebukes and

disease

yet not to be screamed at

set

the cleanest

In his ratmriijto nature he does not select inanimate nature, or single out the savage state.

all.

takes

man

first,

as the

and after man the height and head of things whole tract that human feet can traverse or ;

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

human thought

explore.

157

Cities, arts, occupations,

manufactures, have a larger place in his poetry than rivers or prairies ; for these are nearer to

man, more important to

tion.

what

the poet

exists, of the

last

his destiny

and educa-

fact, of the real, of

true,

positive,

and

sole

ontology.

After

the great thing

all,

is,

possible,

induce people to study Whitman for themselves. I am convinced that, especially for young men, his spirit, if intelligently understood and sympathised with, must be productive of incalculable This, I venture to emphasise by relating good.

what he did

had received the ordinary English gentleman's education at Harrow and for

me.

Being physically below the average in health and strength, my development proceeded Oxford.

more upon the

intellectual

than the athletic

side.

In a word, was decidedly academical, and in What was more, danger of becoming a prig. my constitution in the year 1865 seemed to have I

broken down, and no career in

life

lay open to

In the autumn of that year, my friend Frederic Myers read me aloud a poem frgm me. "

Leaves of Grass."

were together

his

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

158

rooms at Trinity College, Cambridge and

remember the

well

rolling

out

effect

sentence

;

I can

of his sonorous voice

after

sentence,

sending

through the very marrow of my I immediately procured the Boston edi-

electric thrills

mind.^ tion

8 60-6 1,

tively.

and began to study

cannot

denied

atten-

much

that

Whitman

But it was puzzled and repelled me. the aesthetic, not the moral, sensibility that suffered

for I felt at once that his

;

method of

treating sexual things (the common stumblingblock to beginners) was the right one, and ,

wished

that I

Adam"

several

had come across years

earlier.

Children

academical

prejudices, the literary instincts trained

by two

decades of Greek and Latin studies, the refine-

ments

aristocratic

culture,

breeding,

and

the

exclusiveness

revolted against

the un-

couthness, roughness, irregularity, coarseness, of the poet and his style. But, in course of a

short time, debilities. *

Whitman As I have

delivered

soul of these

elsewhere said in print, he

was a piece from " Calamus," beginning "Long I thought that that knowledge alone would suffice me." Curiously enough, this has been omitted from subsequent editions, for what reasons I know not.

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

159 .

taught me to comprehend the harmony between the democratic spirit, science, and that larger

which the modern

world

being of human the brotherhood, by conception and by the spirituality inherent in any really religion

led

view of the universe.

scientific

gave

body_,

the religious creed which I had been already forming for myself upon the study of Goethe, Greek and Roman Stoics, concrete vitality,

Giordano

and

Bruno,

and made me

founders

doctrine.

evolutionary faith,

the

me with

inspired

that

feel

optimism

was

This gave me great cheer evil years of enforced idleness and

not unreasonable. in

those

intellectual

which

torpor

health

imposed

Moreover, upon helped to free me from many conceits and pettinesses to which me.

academical eyes

the

which

culture

may

beauty, be found

the

humblest

beings,

made me

stripped

Through

him,

my I

opened my and goodness greatness

liable.

all

and

respect personality

ments or position I

worthy

the

highest.

more than attain-

in the world.

soul

human

Through him,

social

prejudices.

have been able to fraternise

)

A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN

160

and the

best friends I

soil,

To him

now can "

hard workers,

Only

natural and

imperfect health to take a back-seat in as

life

by so

enjoyments are concerned, and also chosen the career of literary

physical

who have study,

claim

powerful uneducated persons. those who have been condemned

nonchalant,"

far

and

classes

all

training.

special

owe some of the sons of

irrespective of their caste, creed,

several races,

occupation,

men

with

comradeship

can understand what

meant by the besetting invalids and

deliverance from foibles

pedants

for

which

have

thank

Walt

Whitman.

What

he has done for me,

for others

for each

and

all

I feel

he will do

of those

who take

counsel with him, and seek from him a solution of difficulties differing in kind according to the

temper of the individual

only they approach him in the right spirit of confidence and open-

mindedness.

Printed by

BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND Co. London and Edinburgh.

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