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WALT WHITMAN THE PROPHET-POET
WALT WHITMAN THE PROPHET-POET BY
ROLAND
D.
RICHARD
G.
SAWYER
BADGER
.BOSTON I-
!
!
Copyright, 1913, by Richard G. Badger All Rights Reserved
I A- A
THE GORHAM
PRESS, BOSTON, U.
S.
A.
TO
CLARENCE DARROW A FELLOW-TRAVELLER ALONG WALT S OPEN-ROAD
895703
PREFACE In that world in which I live and
have
my
move and
being, the chief source of formation,
growth, influence and impression, has been my There are many books and writings reading. to
which
tory,
am
I
eternally indebted;
literature,
ophy, which, at
economics,
works on
theology,
different periods of
his
philos
my
life,
have taken up and studied, and they became But there milestones along my mental journey. I
are also books and writings of quite another character; works that
we read not
as sources
of information or from which to frame our
philosophy of tional
and
life,
are to be
but works that are inspira
read again and again.
Such
biography and autobi In this ography, religious writings, and poetry. Leaves of realm The Gospel of Jesus," and
works
are
books
of
"
"
Grass,"
are books that have out-distanced
all
others in their influence upon me, and are books
which
I
want ever within reach. 5
PREFACE
6
In the early weeks of the year of 1907
my
eyes were very bad; evenings I could read but little;
sometimes
only a few
lines,
it
was
then
few pages, sometimes must close the book and a
I
brood, ponder, think over what I had read. For such form of reading the poets surpassed all
others,
and
I
soon found that
passed the other poets the
strongest
;
of
stirrings
Whitman
from him
that
my
I
sur
received
emotions and
thoughts.
Thereupon I turned man; I had access to a
Whitman
matter,
to study this
fine private collection
and for several we \s
with
Whitman what he had ;
ago, but
Whitman does
he
he wears
many
I
saturated myself written,
That was
been written about him.
lasts,
of
as well as the public libra
ries,
ing at so
man Whit
what had six
years
not lose his grip on
he touches
life
and
me
feel
places that I believe he will last
and wear.
Much it
has been written about Whitman, and
has been well done but ;
a too technical vein (as
form
as
it
has ofttimes been in
Symonds), or
would appeal only
in
such a
to enthusiasts (as
PREFACE Traubel), or
in
7
too expensive form (as Binns).
need of a short, upto-date, popular presentation of the poet, and his aims and philosophy: to fill that need I have
Accordingly
I
have
felt the
written the following pages under the
Walt Whitman, The Prophet
title
Poet.
ROLAND D. SAWYER. August, 1913
Ample Manse, Off-the-beaten-path-a-bit.
Ware. Mass.
of
CONTENTS CHAPTER I
PAGE
n
THE MAN
II
His MESSAGE
III
His RELIGION
IV
THE NATURE
V VI VII
DEMOCRACY
....
20 31
LOVER
40
His NOTE OF JOY
46
THE
54
POET PIONEER
His PLACE
AMONG THE PROPHETS
.
.
67
WALT WHITMAN THE PROPHET-POET CHAPTER ONE THE MAN "
The
good, gray poet gone
:
brave hopeful Walt,
He may
not have been a singer
without
fault,
Yet there rang
True music through As he
his rhapsodies,
sang,
Of brotherhood, freedom, love and hope. He shall find hearers, who in a slack time, Of puny bards and pessimistic rhyme, men adventure and rejoice: yawp barbaric," was a human voice;
Dared His
The
"
to bid
singer
was a
man."
London Punch.
NO
more
baffling figure
ever entered the
realm of literature than Walt Whitman.
When
he
first
issued his modest edition of one
WALT WHITMAN
12
"
"
thousand copies of Leaves of Grass in 1855, he was greeted on the one hand by Ralph Waldo Emerson, then in the height of his Con cord career, with a letter glowing
Emerson
which u
I
you
greet
said
at
among
the
in praise
other
beginning
:
in
things,
of
a
great
career."
On
the other hand, the conventional literary
reviews greeted him with prompt and savage Said the Boston Intelligencer,
abuse.
of Grass,
The
is
the
"
work of some escaped
Criterion said,
"
The author
Leaves
lunatic."
of this book
must be possessed by the soul of a donkey who of
died
disappointed "The
be publicly
whipped."
who
The London
author of this book ought to
Critic said,
viewers
love."
treated
Edward Everett Hale
There were
Walt with
a few re
forbearance,
for instance; and there
larger number of reviewers, who joined with readers of serious literature, and But treated Walt with contemptuous silence.
was
a
still
Walt Whitman was not
a figure to be treated
with indifference and thus disposed of, as he says
THE MAN "
13
have arrived,
I
Bearded, sun-burnt, gray necked, forbidding, To be wrestled with as I pass
For the
And
solid prizes of the
surely he
was
universe."
to be
reckoned with; smug conventionalism might perhaps have silenced the individual
more than an
Walt Whitman, but Whitman was individual, he was the voice of a
coming new humanity, the expression of coming changes in human life that were not to be checked. If a touch with his personality
is
needed to
understand the literary work of any man, it is Vital surely so with Whitman. Dowden says, "
personal contact with
Whitman
is
essential to
knowledge of him." Triggs put it even stronger and declares that personal absorbtion a true
"
is
the price of understanding
seen to be true that
we must
him."
first
It
is
easily
look at Walt
himself in order to understand and appreciate his work, when we pause to think of the purpose
of
"
Leaves of
new kind of
a
Grass,"
which was to show us a
man, the
modern man.
roughs said in an essay in the Critic
Bur
(March
19,
i
WALT WHITMAN
4
In Emerson we see life through the 1898), Transcendental spirit, in Carlyle through the "
heroic
spirit, in
Hugo
Arnold through the through the
This
classic,
but in
in
Whitman
democratic."
indeed a splendid and accurate
is
fication;
through the Romantic,
and
is
it
essential to
classi
understand the
man, to see him, as Thoreau saw him, the great est democrat of his day then we can under stand his place and message.
primary sources,
("
Careful study of and of Leaves of Grass "),
secondary sources, (his biographers), will soon bring us in sight of the man described so well by
O
Conner
"Large,
calm, superbly formed:
clad in the careless and rough and picturesque
common
costume of the the
stevedore,
mechanic,
people
resembling
seaman or laborer,
passing leisurely along the pavement, such
Walt
is
Whitman."
This was the man, who by some sort of in tuition or cosmic consciousness, seems to have been
first
struck up
to feel the its
modern
spirit,
songs for the world.
and
to
have
A writer and
THE MAN who
poet,
15 "
as
Burroughs
quiry and will repay
provokes
says,
it."
Whitman was born
of good English stock
which he could trace as far back as 1560.
were
a race of solid,
lived,
moderately
Walt took was
moving,
friendly
Long
Hill,
and
He
people.
from them, and
these characteristics
weighed 212 pounds.
They
strong framed, long
tall,
a full six foot tall
West
in
in his best
was born
in
days
1819
at
Island, the second in a family
and two daughters; his boyhood was divided between Long Island and Brooklyn; he attended the common school till he was 13 and of
six sons
was then
From
sent
to
learn
the
printer
s
trade.
17 to 20 he spent his time teaching school,
writing
some
for the papers,
and occasionally
Around the working printing trade. of 20 he and a edited small sheet age published on Long Island for a year and a half; for sev at
his
eral years after, or his
trade in
New
till
1846,
Walt worked
at
York, occasionally writing
something for the newspapers,
attending the
various meetings and places that would attract
1
WALT WHITMAN
6
a serious
minded mechanic.
In 1846
Whitman
was appointed editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and held the position two years, when he
left
it
Orleans. for the
to take charge of a
In this Southern city
first
paper in New romance seems
time to have visited his
came between himself and
Love
life.
a Southern
woman,
apparently of higher social rank which caused her family to look upon any thought of marriage with disfavor.
Love grew
to intimate relations
woman became
the
the
mother of
Whitman very suddenly gave up returned- North, and reticent about the
of
it
from
his books,
unless to speak of
There seems
was ever
whole
it
however, and
affair;
a
child.
his position
and
after strangely
he tore mention
and seldom referred
to
it
as the tragedy of his life.
have been an agreeable under standing between him and the woman, for he seems to have visited her again, and it is not to
sure but that she later bore
him other
and one of the grandchildren him in the North.
is
children;
said to have
visited
Shortly after
Whitman
returned
home
his
THE MAN
17
father died, and a mixture of leisure, newspaper
work, carpenter work, and a good deal of quiet observation, reading and thinking occupied
for the next five years, or the putting out of his
"
till
Then came
1855.
Leaves of
Walt in
Grass,"
an
most of the typographic done by him
edition of 1,000 copies,
work, as well as the writing, being self.
Whitman
life
s
with some writing and
When
the
Quaker
the
passed along
work
war broke
traditions in
at his calling.
Whitman, true to which he was brought
out,
up, subscribed too strongly to Garrison
But
to enlist.
a brother
when he was wounded in
Dec.
1862,
till
George
s
ideas
enlisted,
and
Burnside campaign 1862, Walt at once started for the in the
When Walt got there
hospital camps.
he found
George was well and out, but the hospitals were full of sick and wounded soldier boys who needed him quite as much as George ever did, and in the hospital camps he stayed, ministering to
the wounded,
until
the
war
heroism and the love of Walt
and
a half years has
history;
it
is
said
closed.
in those next
no parallel
in the
he ministered to
The two
war
100,000
1
WALT WHITMAN
8
Such devotion and
men.
the
silenced
carping
sacrifice
of
cries
should have
the
outraged
who were ever criticising him. Walt had no means of getting
prudes
and there was no pay so
his
ment position mornings, and
Walt kept up
He and
secured
friends
also kept later
as
a
his
in
here
clerk:
living,
hospital work,
him
for
a
a
govern
he
worked
visited the hospitals afternoons. this life to the close
up
his writing,
and
work did not prove
of the war.
his
war
quite so
pieces
much
a
shock to the sensitive nerves of the conventional people as had his
and
a
"
circle
growing fame became his.
Song of Walt Whitman," of friends, and a growing
In 1873,
Walt who had been
just ten years in
down
in
Washington, suffered his break health, a shock, from which he never
fully recovered.
home
He
was taken
to his brother s
Camden, N. J., and had not been long there before the mother for whom he felt such a in
great love died, and for the next three years, find
we
Walt, sad, sick and lonely, living with his By 1876 he had in a measure re
brother.
covered his health, and the next few years were
THE MAN of considerable activity.
with his brother little
home
set years
in
till
1884,
He
1892.
continued to live
when he bought
his
Camden, where he passed the sun
of his
life,
receiving the
increasing circle of admirers, in
19
till
homage of an
his life
went out
CHAPTER TWO MESSAGE
HIS
DEMOCRACY
"
I
speak the pass-word primeval.
I
give the sign
of Democracy."
an analysis of
IN world, upbn
its
there
is
Whitman
s
message to the
a very general
agreement Symonds and Bur
essential elements.
roughs are the standard interpreters of the poet, ,aad a glance at the following table will
how thoroughly Walt
s
they agree
show
in their analysis
of
message; they consider the poet under
these divisions
SYMONDS
BURROUGHS
Religion
Religion
Self-Hood
Self-Reliance
Sex Element
Sex and Morals
Comradeship
Democracy
The
artist
Pioneer
Democracy and poet
The
artist
and
Pioneer
Poet of Science Personality
Personality
his art
HIS MESSAGE
DEMOCRACY
21
Ingersoll in his short but excellent study of
Whitman, follows and
namely,
"
consider
Clarke
pher."
same
classification
and makes only one addition,
division,
to
exactly the
is
Whitman
the
Philoso
and speaks of the
shorter,
"
message under the heads of Religion, Democracy, Art and Personality." Whitman s
poet
s
biographers
make
same analysis Binn, the The Mystic," chapter on
the
best of them, has a
:
"
from any treatment by the above mentioned writers. Havelock Ellis calls which
is
different
Whitman
"
The Poet
considers his
of the
work under
New
Spirit,"
the heads, "
Pioneer, treats
him
Artist,
Dowden
Democrat, Personality as The Poet of Democracy," with ;
"
out definite analysis, and so does Triggs. evident that whatever faults
he did not is
and
"
fail to
no division
ing him. relation to
make
in his
his
Walt may have
is
had,
message clear; there
followers about understand
Burroughs reference
modern
It
science
is
to
Whitman
good, but
it
s is
Burroughs rather than Whitman who sees it, and it was not a conscious, integral part of Whit
man
s
teaching.
And
again Ingersoll
s
refer-
WALT WHITMAN
22 ence to
Whitman
well taken.
A
"
as
Philosopher," is
It is true that
see things, but
it
was
Walt had
to see
them
hardly
the soul to
as the poet or
seer, rather than the philosopher: to see them with the feeling rather than the reason.
He took in over
in his
everything, and turned
mind, but
it
was
rather than reason about their
knowledge by
over and
brood over
to
it.
it
it
Poets come to
intuition rather than
through
Walt
instead
the processes of reasoning, and
of being an exception to the rule, was one of its
clearest examples.
With
concensus of the opinion of is,
these omitted, the
Whitman
s
students
that to understand his message, one needs to
discuss
and understand,
His Personality His Literary art and aims His treatment of Sex His Religion His position as
a Pioneer
and Prophet
His Democracy, Comradeship, Self-hood, I
would agree that these are the
things to understand to
know Walt
s
etc.
essential
message
DEMOCRACY
HIS MESSAGE for us; but
which
I
would add two more
I
think are necessary that
and these
23
chapters,
we should
see,
His Note of Joy and His Love of Nature." I also would dissent from "
"
that classification that puts
element of
Walt s message,
do not so understand
I
"
are,
Democracy
one
as
alongside the others.
Whitman was
it,
the
poet of Democracy, and his democracy does not stand alongside of the other elements, but
embraces
it
all.
There
Symonds and Burroughs sage, but they
democracy racy
is
sister to
the
in
fault
mother of
all
with
mes
state the relation of
to the other elements:
Walt
democ
ideas, not a
s
any of them.
WHITMAN Thus
it
comes
DEMOCRACY
S
that
we
his message, but as the
warp and woof
Whitman
s
s
salient points in
message
that
Walt
consider
Democracy, not as one of the the
no
dissection of the
do not quite it
is
itself.
contains
all
It is else.
Democracy was that revolutionary
democracy that has been trying to express
itself
made
itself
in
stronger tones ever since
it first
WALT WHITMAN
24 heard at
all,
"in
the one
happy event
the French Revolution.
tory,"
Whitman
s
message,
is
in his
Democracy and
liberty, equality
in
fra
ternity.
His
a ual, the in his
liberty
is
the liberty of the individ
There was no excuse
whole individual.
mind for anything
that infringes on the
liberty of the individual.
This leads him to
those parts of his message spoken of as his individuality,
views, joy in his
body,
egoism,
self-hood,
sex
religion,
Liberty for the whole man,
life.
every part of
He
it.
resents
all
that
power,
restraint,
hamper
the freest development and expression
canons,
of the individual.
foremost
as
In
governments
he has,
all his writings,
in view, this healthy, free
person
ality. "
One
s self I sing,
a simple, separate
"
I
will effuse egotism,
I
will be the bard of
He vidual;
insists all
and show
it
underlying
all,
personality."
that everything
poems,
person."
is
doctrines,
for the indi art,
religion,
HIS MESSAGE
He
civilizations.
DEMOCRACY
even growls
at his
"
States,"
25
beloved
"
that they are giving
modesty, up and have become keyed "
honesty,
generosity,"
up by money religion,
he does ing to right,
money
ideals,
money men
"
politics,
money
(Camden, page 42), and
on the ground that they are neglect And he was develop the individual. this
he wanted to level up, but he saw money-
madness w as leveling down. Because of his zeal for liberty, Walt was ready to leave the r
"
Beaten
Road "
Path
"
Henceforth fortune
I .
.
I
am
travel
"
The
Open
ask
one of those
Presidents
not good
fortune
I
am good
.
Strong and content "
and
"
I
travel the open road.
who
look carelessly into the faces of
and governors as
to
say
who
are
you?"
b u
But Walt
s
an altru-egoism
self that
he does not want others to have on
equal terms. all
egoism is as Burroughs says, he wants nothing for him
":
He
men and both
is
for equality; equality of sexes.
This led him to
WALT WHITMAN
26
further radical sex views, to his humanity feel
and he becomes so intensely human and His conception of democracy is sympathetic. ings;
that of
an absolute equality.
the universe
creation
He all
is
sound, evil
He
it
is
God made
believes
good.
if
good
is
Everything in has a show. The
just a part of
speaks the
word
and gives the sign of democracy. of
for equality,
woman
is
all
good and the cessful
is
en-masse,"
He
crys out
His
the strong comrade, and the mother
:
Whitman
it
"
men, of the sexes.
men not the weak toy and men are equal, the wise and of
good.
everything, hence
is
sweetheart.
the
rich
the bard of
them
evil:
and the
failures
All
the lacking: the
and the poor. all,
of the suc
as well; he
puts his
arms about the outcast and the prostitute: he is
as embracing as the sun in the skies.
Even
the hardships of the long-drawn and painful
do not phase Walt, and he would Cause and Cure of agree with Carpenter civilization
("
Civilization
that
it all is
a sort of
prolonged and necessary disease that will eventually lead to a fuller and better life. Like Tolstoy, ")
,
DEMOCRACY
HIS MESSAGE Whitman had people
:
entered the
27
of the working
life
not the slums, not the poor degenerate,
but the working class.
And
he found
elements free in
among them of our human life, the
men and women;
friendship;
social
open-hearted,
the honest workers living
and
were the people who
for
little
caring
distinctions
the healthiest
formalities,
These
conventions.
Walt
in
thought were
s
the salt of the earth, and all of us
who have
touched the different classes agree with Walt. And so he glories in the common-people, in the sun-tan, in the brawn,
in the
common;
exalts
the uncouth and decries the cultured and effemi nate.
He
goes forth to
ness and gladness
c
grit within is
you," "
for the
to level all
he
divine
up to the to
make
"
superb
Under His
is
Open your
men."
blow
common man and women,
them
persons."
the thought of
Walt emphasizes racy.
I
his passion
plane of the all like
"
His message
challenges. average,"
toss the
among
scarfed chin, while
new rough
"
comradeship,"
the fraternity side of
comradeship
is
not
democ
merely
the
WALT WHITMAN
28 delightful
emotions
social, yes
and
men
the faith in "
Come,
will
I
I
will
make
I
will
make
between
political
but
friends,
Walt has
bond.
a all
that Jesus ever had, he says
make
the continent indissoluble
;
the most splendid race the sun ever shone
upon,
With
And
divine magnetic lands,
the love of
comrades."
again he puts over against
stitutions,
states,
churches,
that one great institution of
comrades "
The The
He
all
human
property and "
all,
the dear love of
"
:
dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, continuance of Equality shall be
comrades."
looks forward in his message of
racy to the better day, to that friends,
in
when church and
state,
new
and
all
democ city
of
hamper
ing institutions and custom shall be dissolved,
and the Love of Comrades be the only bond in That may seem to some to-day, to society. be a very insecure bond, but to Walt s far-see ing vision, our present bonds of life are more insecure.
He
saw that
social
life
could not
DEMOCRACY
HIS MESSAGE
29
cohere by means of lawyers, agreements on paper or force of arms.
Walt
s
different
from
realization
in
when we reach then
till
then not something
democracy, it is rather the human life of his democracy; his
that free relationship
all this talk
To
chatter.
is
comradeship
we have
about having
the short-sighted
it
is
it,
mere
Walt may ap
pear only destructive, but to those who see farther in, he is ever constructive, he wants to
throw away the
shell,
the
emperors, armies, and have
And Walt saw
ship of democracy.
thing was working for
churches,
states,
in their place the
that every
and that when the
this,
ship
is
launched there will be stored
only
all
the present but all the past.
table
of
of the
analysis
would draw
it
poet
s
in
it,
not
To make
a
message,
I
thus
DEMOCRACY LIBERTY
EQUALITY
FRATERNITY
Self-Hood
Humanism
Comradeship
Sex Values
Sex-equality
Religion
Joys in
life
30
WALT WHITMAN
That Walt was no mere preacher, but was sincerely in earnest in this message is abund antly testified to
by
his hospital
work
in the
army, and such incidents as his assisting the sintrampled youth to escape the Boston police and escape into Canada.
CHAPTER THREE HIS RELIGION "
God in every object, yet understanding God not in the least. In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass; I find letters from God dropped in the streets and every one signed by God s name." I
hear and behold
WALT
Whitman was
a
profoundly reli was so
gious man, though broad and advanced, that he had
with
The time
the
organized
his religion little
sympathy
of
religion.
institutions
only religious order that he had at any
anything like
sympathetic
feelings
for,
were the Hicksite Quakers; their influence on his life
lived in
and views was considerable.
Walt
God, immortality, religion; but not
bein
Christ, the Bible or the church, at least accord
ing to the generally accepted Christian views.
Whitman
s
God, was the immanent 31
God
of the
WALT WHITMAN
32
most radical new theology,
whom
he
felt
40
years before these theologians deduced him.
Goethe sang "
God
dwells within and moves within the world and
molds,
Himself and Nature
and with sees
Walt
this agrees the
God
"
s
is
in
he
is
in the
on
every
view of Whitman, which
pray
This
object."
who
not one
whom we may
"
one form enfolds,
in
God
of
reveals himself, or to
in a Christian sense,
but
the Eternal Good-Will, which back there
Universe,
whom
the Cause of
is
the race
may
all things,
and
And
in confidence rely.
this confidence, or reliance on this God, this
state
of
mental
rest
which
Divinity in everything, was his religion, "
says,
"
it
upon
this
He
and permanent grandeur of
must be
He
feels
very high.
their
And
religion."
There can be no character or
religion."
and
what Walt meant by
and he ranked
the real
these states
sees
also teaches that
life
again,
without
we may
Good-Will for personal
life
rely
beyond
the grave, for immortality; as he expresses
it,
HIS RELIGION "
I
laugh at what you
Toward ing,
and a
Walt had reverence for him
the poem,
shows
call dissolution."
Jesus
"
Walking
a very tender feel as a great
To Him Who Was Walt speaks
this.
"
33
in
one
:
Crucified,-
place
of
the hills of Judea with the beautiful
God by my The Lord Jesus
gentle
side."
In another place he
"
calls
Teacher
pressions were
Christ,"
but these ex
not in the sense of ordinary
accepted Christian faith.
As
for the Bible, and
forms of worship and churches, he says, We consider Bibles and religion divine, that is, they "
Here he means to say that they are divine as we are divine, as everything Walt is divine, but not in any other sense. grow out of
saw no
us."
special revelation, in fact to
not needed,
all is revelation.
For
him
in
his
was
this religion,
this sort of a natural, pantheistic theism,
was ever urgent
it
Walt
demands, and he de
clares "
No man was
ever half devout enough
None have ever yet adored or worshiped half enough, None has ever begun to see how divine, he himself is."
WALT WHITMAN
34
And
I know I am we hear him say, mouse is enough to stagger "
again,
deathless."
"A
sextillions of
my
priests,
Whitman
s
"
I
infidels."
faith
the
is
religion
do not despise you of
greatest
faiths."
was then very near
that of
the advanced liberal of to-day, a sort of natural istic
tions
But with the
theism.
Walt found
little
liberal
denomina
more sympathy than
with the orthodox; the Quakers and their inner light
came nearest
And Whitman
to his ideas.
The
held his conceptions to the end.
attitude
of mind he reveals in his heart-to-heart talks with Traubel during the closing years, of
attitude
his
Camden show in
God,
in
It is true
whole
life.
to the last
These
Walt
s
is
talks
the at
strong belief
immortality, in the worth of religion.
Whitman
is
listed as a free-thinker,
and that he manifests a deep detest of preachers and churches, but the basis of all this was his religion, not his lack of
toward Jesus
it.
And
his attitude
in these last days, is the
same
as
that of earlier days, he sees in Jesus the great
prophet-comrade, nothing more. To quote from some of Walt s talks at Camden, he soul, the
HIS RELIGION speaking of Cable,
says (page 97)
thinnest man, the
he with
is
a typical
all
that
most uninteresting,
person
in the
"
he
I
is
the
ever met
Sunday School Superintendent
And what
signifies."
Walt, he shows us when he
to
35
says,
whom
world from
it "
I
signifies
The
last
should expect
any inspiration would be the average Sunday School teacher the typical good man of the
money bags of
the
churches,
criticise
criticisms of the ing,
a
Walt for such utterances was when he made them. Walt s
tendency to there
parish."
would not be to-day so strong
Probably there as
the
he says
in
churchVere indeed very search
one place,
of the church are to
"
The
negative virtues
me
very abhorrent; the morals of the church would be morals if they were not something else."
At another
place he remarks, about as
stoy later remarked,
"
That he had often
Tol tried
how Jesus and the churches got so how the institution came to destroy
to discover
divorced, the
spirit."
Walt took
John Wanamaker, who "
Leaves
"
as
a
concrete
case
refused to allow the
to be sold in his store.
"
The whole
WALT WHITMAN
36
ideal of the church a sort of
the
low, loathsome, horrible,
is
moral degradation, out of touch with of
contemporary complains Walt.
struggles
bitterly
When
was put
the question
humanity/
to him, if he
thought the churches could safely be destroyed, he replied, Yes, why not: I see no use for the "
church 4
The
world
if
it
lags behind the
age."
He
says,
distinctly preacher ages are gone is
done with sermonizing
I
the
am
not
in
his
sorry."
Walt was tremendously
interested
and gloried in Ingersoll s and his triumphs over his
friend
Ingersoll,
whacks
at the church,
antagonists, especially his triumph over
Glad
stone.
Yet Walt
distinctly
denies
toward the church; he says
in
"
talks,
People thought
against
the
church,
bothered me, and church "
I
it is
I
I
but
any bitterness
one of his
the
church
set
never
have never bothered the
a clean-cut bargain
have nothing at
Camden
was powerful
all
between
us."
with the letter of the
church, but that part of the church which
is
not
HIS RELIGION jailed in church buildings
anybody
Walt
s."
s
to
Corning and
who
visit
mine as well as
is all
about
feeling
reiterated in these last days,
37
is
Jesus
when he
declares
Clifford, the Unitarian ministers
him, that he holds the crucifixion of
Jesus to have been but one of
many
tragedies,
of Jesus was just another life, told big to be sure, but just another life." When Walt heard for the first time Ingersoll s
and that the
life
"
eulogy on the
"
Leaves of
Grass,"
he gratefully
acknowledged the tribute, but pointed out that Ingersoll had stopped short of the plain matter, "
full
was crammed
Leaves of Grass
and that
of immortality, bound together by the idea
of a resident purpose in humanity and the uni verse." People say the Again he declares, "
1
want
Leaves
in religion,
but
I
think
the
it is
it is crammed full of most religious of books faith is its one substance, without it, it faith would be an empty vessel." These statements
show
that
Walt never changed
his attitude
on
70 he held to the same faith as that his religion was worth some
religion, that at at 35.
And
thing to him,
is
seen by the support
it
gives
him
WALT WHITMAN
38
burden of
in the
those trying sick years of
The Song of
the
74 and 75,
"All,
all for
Universal,"
"
of
Speaking to
God
"
Belief in plan of
The Prayer of the Red Wood
immortality:
like the light, silently
Love,
wrapping
Thee
Few men have
enclosed in time and space,
felt
universal."
more secure of personal
immortality than Walt Whitman. "
believe in immortality; I
identity.
feeling than
yes
I
know
And
have arrived at
lest
soul,
mean
He
this result
by formal reason, but
says,
mean more by
and by that
I
I believe
it,
it."
he be misunderstood he declares
again a few days I
all."
of his faith he says
Health, peaces, salvation
I
in
"
The Song Hear him cry out,
Columbus," Tree."
or
like the
See his recorded moods
faith of St. Francis. "
It shines out in
his sickness.
"
later,
When
I
say immortality
identity, the survival of the personal
your survival,
my
survival.
not immortality then the universe
is
If there
a fraud.
is
I
HIS RELIGION agree with Epictetus, that what
good enough good enough for me; the Whitman immortal and so am
for the universe
universe
is
39
is
is
I."
one would agree with Thoreau in saying, world at a time," but he would go on to maintain "
that the very expression involved another world, as indeed I
it
does.
close this reference to
Whitman
referring the reader to his
Let those
bus."
"
s
religion
Prayer of
classical critics
who
by
Colum
say
Walt
could not write poetry, and those ecclesiastical critics who say Walt had no religion, tell us
what
to
do with
it,
if it
be not a genuine poetic
expression of deep religious faith.
Old, just
paralyzed,
worn and poor, Ocean of Death, Walt
battered,
on the margin of the
under here pours out the secrets of his soul, a thin historical disguise," as Binn well calls it. "
CHAPTER FOUR THE NATURE LOVER "
Doubtless there comes a time, and perhaps to me, when one feels through his whole
come and
pronouncedly the emotional part, between himself and Naflir^ which
the
it
has
being,
identity
Schelling and Fichte are so fond of I know not, it is pressing. but I often realize a presence here, in clear moods I am
How
certain of
it,
give the least
and neither chemistry nor
aesthetics will
explanation." <(
WALT
The Oaks and // Specimen Days.
Whitman
s
place
among
the pre
eminent Nature-Lovers of the world
can be disputed by no one.
His feeling for Nature was far beyond that of the average man. Dr. Bucke says, "Walt s favorite was
to
away by
stroll
occupation about out of doors, sauntering
himself, looking at the grass, flowers,
trees, vistas of light,
changing aspects of the
sky, listening to the birds, the insects, tree-frogs, 40
THE NATURE LOVER and
all
41
the hundreds of natural sounds.
evident that these things gave
It
was
him a pleasure
beyond what they give ordinary people. Until I knew him I did not dream that these far
things could give one the absolute happiness
they gave
him."
Bucke
s
testimony
is
truthful
and well deserved, for one has but to study Walt s life to see him the Nature-Lover. As a lad
we
him lying on the sand, gazing into spellbound by its awe and mysticism.
find
the sea,
We
him the robust man, seeing and
see
Nature
down
great heart.
s
in the
And
the
feeling
convalescent
lane at Timber-Creek finds healing
and happiness in the caressing air and sunshine, and he feels the all embracing love. The old man drives his horse into the ocean and sits an hour enjoying the sunset and gets the cold that Whitman has left us abun brings on death. dant testimony of what he
Nature;
I
felt
and saw
in
can here take space to pick up but a
few of these things "
Oxen
that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the
leafy shade,
What
is
that
you express
in
your eyes?
WALT WHITMAN
42
me more
seems to
It
Or I
the print I ever
all
again, his feeling of
am
"
than
The Night
"
read."
"
one that walks with the tender and growing
night, I call to
Press
the earth and sea, half-held by the night.
bare-bosomed
close,
Press
night
close
mag
few
stars
netic nourishing night;
Night of the south winds, night
He
feeling by saying,
describe
pathos that years,
is
that he
I
us,
man.
my
to sleep.
1
And
comes from him
that
wrung from
am I
touch with Nature.
want
I
shall I it
the only tone of in the
his lips
an open-air man:
his
every night
must give up something of
this direct "
The Katy-Did, how
piquant utterance
its
me
soothes
by the thought this out-doors,
He am
old crippled
cries out to
an open-water
am
to get out,
fly,
swim,
But
my
feet are eternally
feet again.
:
night."
Katy-Did and records
listens to the "
for
of the large
nodding night, mad, naked, summer
Still
I
eager
gone."
But Whitman was not only the supreme feeler of Nature, he was also the creator of a literary style particularly adapted to the ex-
THE NATURE LOVER pression of the
great emotions
that
43
Nature
makes her appreciative children feel. When Bryant wanted to express these emotions, he found as Blake had found, that the rhyme and rhythm of ordinary verse were all insufficient, and he took recourse to the stately lines of But Walt went a step farther and
blank verse.
created a style of his own, a literary form of expression that
Ed.
most
distinctly the out-doors style.
is
Carpenter, disciple, says
to write in
who
is
Whitman
he has to go out of doors
Whitman
style,
that
if
but the minute he goes outside is
the result.
serene,
Whitman
untempered
gether,"
he attempt
on rhyming,
to write inside his thoughts insist
"
fore
s
Whitman
verse
verse and the great
facts of the
Earth go to
declares Carpenter.
The Crosby speaking on this point says, trim balance of a Christmas tree with colored "
candles and gilt balls and stars
way, but
make
And
it is
the
is
beautiful in a
want of symmetry that helps
the oak and the pine, kings of the forest.
even blank verse with
all its
grandeur is too suggestive of landscape gardening, or the
WALT WHITMAN
44
studied roughness of rock clusion
is
that
The
gardens."
Whitmanic verse
is
con
the natural
form of out-door expression. I can but here add my personal word, that for me, there is no form of expression so adequate to reveal the feelings
we
get in the soul
trees, as this style
Walt
s
of
when out under
Whitman
the
s.
rapture of Nature reaches the point
of a religion and has been often pointed out. The note sounded by Goethe, that u God and
Nature
in
one form
enfolds,"
was
certainly ably
who declared he saw, heard and God in every object." Whitman tells us his book is to be read
seconded by him "
felt
"
Among
Nature."
the
cooling
And
influences
of
external
he goes on to define what he
means by Nature, not the smooth walks, trimmed hedges, butterflies, posies and nightin "
gales of the English poets, but the whole orb,
with fire
its
geologic history, the
and snow, that
rolls
,
carrying
through the illimitable
areas, light as a feather lions of
Kosmos
though carrying mil
tons."
Nature
to
him
is
the whole big world carry-
THE NATURE LOVER ing everything with
Leaves he
tells
In his preface to the
it.
us of the effect on one
of this love of the Earth, and
ming up of his feeling that it
in closing this "
This
is
it is
s
conduct,
the best
we have and
I
sum quote
consideration; he says
what you
and animals, despise asks,
45
shall do, love the earth,
riches, give
and sun,
alms to everyone
who
stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your
labor and income to others, hate tyrants, argue not con
cerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing
or to any
man
or
number
of
known
men; go
or
unknown,
freely with the
powerful uneducated people, and with the young, and with the mothers of families; read these Leaves (Leaves of Grass)
in the open air every season of the Re-examine what year. you have been taught in the or in the schools, church, or in books, and reject what
ever insults your
own
soul."
CHAPTER FIVE HIS "
I
dote on myself
and
NOTE OF JOY there
all so
is
that lot of me,
luscious
;
Each moment, and whatever happens,
thrills
me with
joy."
KNOW
I
of no place where
we
get such
an interpretation of the joyousness of just living, as we do in the poems of Whitman.
Burroughs speaking of Whitman
s life
describes
"
as being,
unhampered, unworldly, un conventional, picturesque, simple, untouched by it
free,
the craze of "
life." "
was
a saunter
enjoying let us "
money Whitman
life to
hear
getting, a joyfully contented s
life,"
continues Burroughs,
through the years, too busy in But anything."
be disturbed by
Whitman
for himself, he says
am enamored of growing out-doors; Of men that live among cattle,
I
or taste of the ocean or woods; 46
NOTE OF JOY
HIS Of
the builders
and
4?
steerers of ships,
and the wielders of axes and mauls, and the drivers of horses; I
can eat and sleep with them,
week
Now
here
and week
in
we
certainly
out."
have the
picture, not
of the effete and pampered, such has become so
good an example of
aristocratic success,
and
in
emulation of which, half the world has worn itself
we have
pale and discontented, but
robust, healthy
man.
Such a
man
the
any of us worth living. as
may be, and being so, may find life Walt shows us that the truest joy does not come from the attainment of those things which we do
not care for, but which an abnormal society says
we must joy of
have.
life
Walt
comes
says to us that the true
in the living
out of our true
Developing those loves, longings and
selves.
As he
desires that are especially ours.
puts
it
for us in one of his verses "
When
I
been still it
heard at the close of day received
was not
with plaudits
how my name had
in
the
capitol,
a happy night that followed.
WALT WHITMAN
48
And
else
when
accomplished,
But
plans were
the bed of
I
still
when
the day
when my
was not happy; rose at dawn from
caroused, or
I
I
perfect health, refreshed, singing, inhaling the ripe
breath of autumn,
When
saw
I
the full
moon
in the
west grow pale and
disappear in the morning light,
When
wandered alone over the beach, undressed, bathed, laughed with the cool waters, saw the I
sunrise,
And thought of my Then I was happy."
Here we have
dear friends on their
it,
there
is
to be happy, but to just live
way coming,
nothing necessary :
live,
freed from
conventions and false pursuits, just live naturally and be possessed by the joys that are all about us.
Perhaps many of us have tried at some fool our life, to enter into the spirit of
ish period in
snobbish society (I have, may God forgive me) to stand about in a stiff collar and starched ,
shirt
and
daintily sip
black
from
coat
white
vest.
To
a cup of cocoa or punch, to
nibble
from some
in
doing this?
joy
and
little
bit
Do we
not
was there any see, that
being
HIS down
NOTE OF JOY
49
at the beach, lolling in the sand, bare
footed,
collarless
and
come
crested waves
in
coatless, watching the and recede, to be filled
with the music of their roar: to open the lunch
and ply ourselves vigorously to the pie and hunk of cheese, do we not see that as Walt shows
us,
To
here comes joy.
barn of any thrifty farmer,
go into the
our nostrils of
fill
the cattle, horses and hay, stroke their sleek sides,
look into their eyes, feel their fellow does not this spell for us sweet
ship, their life,
ness and joy? joy.
Live
in
Anything that our
is
natural contains
own way, shun
conventional
make-shifts, and joy awaits us, says
Let us look
at
Walt
Whitman.
as he presents himself in
the 1860 edition of his poems, "
His shape
arises
Arrogant, masculine, naive, rowdyish,
Laugher, weeper, worker,
idler,
Saunterer of woods, stander upon
summer swimmer
citizen,
countryman,
hills,
in rivers or seas
Countenance sunburnt, bearded, unrefined, Reminder of animals, meeter of savage and gentlemen on equal terms,
WALT WHITMAN
50
Passer of the right hand around the shoulder of his friends,
Enterer every where, welcomed every where, easily
"
understood by
Such was
this
all
man,
message that we can
The man in his
life
democrat, with a
this
all
hear and carry out.
freed from conventions, living his
own way, and
finding
it
as his bi
"
It is one long joyful his philosophy of life which is preeminently fitted to lead one to realize the joy in just liv
ographer says,
"
lot."
Leaves of
ing.
the joy of
life,
the text-book of
its
studies
its
"To
breathe the
message, will come to ac
air,
how
delicious:
speak, to walk, to seize something by the
the
it
gospel, to quote again
cept
O
is
and the one who
long enough to get
To
Grass,"
amazement
hand:
of things:
the spirituality of things 1 praise
For I
I
with
electric voice,
do not see one imperfection
in
the
universe,
do not see one cause or result lamentable
last."
Hubbard sums up with a stroke of Milton the whole story, when he says,
Elbert
"
genius,
at
NOTE OF JOY
HIS us
told
about
hell,
Binns "
but
is
all
remained for Walt Whitman
it
about the
earth."
another
who "
Walt, he
in
joy
about heaven, Dante told us
all
to tell us
51
says,
"
notes this
The pages
Note of
of
Leaves
Byron may portray the happy man. dominate the whole of Europe for a genera
of Grass
tion
by the dark, Satanic splendor of
may hold
Carlyle
us by his fierce, lean passion
for sincerity: but
outshining of his
And
so
most
all
of
Whitman draws
common Walt
us.
us by the
joy."
Walt does
the joys, the
his pride:
we may have now.
tell
us of the earth, of
joys of tells
life,
accessible to
of the good things
While other poets are
ever looking back and grieving for the return of childhood to see that blest,"
"
Walt
of the present
happy days, or looking ahead
s
man never life.
sighs, he bids us
he
the child
lifts
but always
sings of the beauties
He
s
is
and
to be
glories
rebukes our groans and
look out and see the wonders
of creatipn, he shows us
grow
is,
we ought never
delight at the
to out
wonders of
us up, he gives us courage,
manly
life,
pride,
WALT WHITMAN
52 self-reliance,
to us
and the strong
when we
feel real kinship with the
To sum
of the Universe.
u
into his disciple the
note in
He
Walt
faith that
Joy of
it
up Walt
He
thinks of
this
own
the
death, in
as a soothing,
it
he describes
moment when
ulting
And
Living."
even treated of death, his
a similar vein.
Heart infuses
never deserted him.
s life
beautiful voyage,
comes
it
vessel
as that ex
leaves
the
shore "
Joy, shipmate, joy! soul at death I cry:
Pleased to
my
Our The The
closed
life is
our
life
long, long anchorage is
ship
begins:
we
leave
;
clear, at last she leaps
She swiftly courses from the shore: "
Joy, shipmate
He
welcomes
;
Joy
!
"
it
Come,
by saying
lovely,
He figures it soothing and delicate Death." mother gliding with soft footsteps," as a dark "
to relieve.
Such
is
message.
the
The
"
Note of Joy
"
in
Whitman
s
snatches of quotation I have
NOTE OF JOY
HIS made have been
53
suggestive rather than exhaus
tive. I "
have not touched
Poem "
us,
to
of
Joys,"
make
his
long
where he
poem
entitled,
starts out
the most jubilant
he
tells
and
poem," "
where he speaks of the joy of his and caged, darting like lightning,"
spirit
in
un
which he
exultant moments in goes on to treat of the His work is full of the common toils of men.
have simply purposed to draw attention to the fact, and to show that no treatment of Walt is complete that does "
this
Note of
Joy."
not take note of
it.
I
CHAPTER
SIX
THE POET PIONEER "
I
of art.
will lock horns for a
moment with
the question
With
hardly an exception the poets of the day devote themselves mainly, sometimes altogether, to fine
rhyme, spicy verbalism, the fabric and cut of the gar I have not bothered much style.
ment, jewelry and about
me
never allowed them to impede nor assume mastery over me." style,
form, art
"Good-By
My
Fancy."
was a pioneer among poetic two things, his form of expres
WHITMAN writers in
and his use of sex images. His position was so unique, and came upon us so abruptly, that we are not yet over discussing it, and any sion
treatment of the poet must consider
Carpenter
in his recent excellent
the question as one,
it.
True,
study dismisses
"
futile
because wholly rhe
torical," but this dismission will hardly suffice. First let us take up Walt s form of expression.
54
THE POET PIONEER Is
55
poetry, or only prose in disguise, as his
it
The answer we
enemies declare.
will give will
probably depend upon our theory of what art
one
If
is.
really
who mixes
we regard
the true artist as the
colors or disposes words, then
will hardly put
Walt
we
the class with those
in
workers, like Tennyson for instance, a very slender line of thought
who
and work
it
take
over
and over for 40 years till it becomes well nigh But if we regard as the technically perfect.
man who
the
artist,
tions that he felt
reproduces
in
you the emo
when he saw with
eagle eye,
and sang or painted, then we must rate Walt as far above such as Tennyson as the moon is above
The popular objection to Walt s abandonment of the common meter and rhyme,
the
is
stars.
not so formidable as
tion a bit.
When we
appears, upon reflec
it
pause to think a
bit
we
begin to see with Shelley, that the rule estab lished in literature that writers of prose
seek not,
new forms while is
a
bad
rule.
poet-pioneer,
as
writers of poetry
We
should hail a pioneer.
must
begin to feel
And Whitman
Stedman
"
says,
may that we is
that
Leaves of
WALT WHITMAN
56 Grass
in
thought and method
is
avowedly a
protest against a hackneyed breed of singers,
singing the same old
songs."
And we
higher authority that Stedman,
own summing up
poet himself, in his self in a review,
bard
"
he says
have a
we have
the
of him
An American
one of the roughs, large, proud,
at last
eating, drinking and breeding costume manly and free, his face sun-burnt and bearded. For intellectual people who affectionate,
his
follow their reading, dress and eating by
who keep
don or Paris
in
out of doors, never
touch the earth bare-foot, he does not sing. tea-drinking poet child of the
is
Walt Whitman, but
or lack of
himself,
it
No
a rude
people."
However much some may taste,
Lon
it,
in
must stand
criticise
Walt
s
writing this view about as the authoritative
sum
ming-up of what he meant by his work, and how I know he most desired it should be regarded. of no statement that has ever been made, that I
believe
would have pleased Walt
when he says of Walt, our modern centuries a
that of Prof. Carpenter, "
For the
first
time
in
so much, as
THE POET PIONEER poet had been born of the people a
We
renegade."
writers,
notably
must also
Shelley
and
57
who was
not
recall that other
Emerson,
had
lamented the narrow confines of poetic form,
and even experimented along the
They
development.
Whitman
did.
found them adapted to threw them
did not succeed,
tried the classical
that
insufficient,
him nor he out,
line
of
new
Whitman
forms and
they were
not
to them, so he boldly
with a courage native to him
and originated the irregular lines better adapted to his self-expression. His own de self,
fense
the
was
manifesto preface to
and the words that sum up his simplicity and originality of expres
edition
first
idea, are sion."
set forth in his
"
Walt
s
lines are not,
however, utterly
abandoned, they are indeed carefully chosen; and he tells us he searched for proper words and forms as much as the most careful stylist. He once told Burroughs he had been searching for 25 years for a word to express what the twi The light song of the robins meant to him.
wonderful amount of expression contained in the titles of his pieces shows to us that his words
WALT WHITMAN
58
were not stumbled on, but carefully and power The same care is shown in the fully selected. length of his lines, and they
come
make
to
for
us neither prose nor poem, but a sort of free
and yet measured chant.
They do not
lend
themselves readily to popularity, they are hardly quotable like
declared
rhymed
rhyme because
for
memory, but
Tennyson once
things.
it
the
assisted
Ingersoll well points out, that with
the use of the printing press, the old idea of a poet being also a rhymester
no longer neces
is
Ingersoll even went further and declared
sary.
rhyme was
a hindrance, because
the poet to
wander from
it
his subject
compelled
and
inter
fered with his dramatic action, which, as poetry is
the sudden, short bursting into blossom of a
great thought, lines then can
Walt
must destroy poetry.
never go into the school-room and "
Psalm of
And
displace
Longfellow
there
a certain stateliness in the lines of
is
Memoriam But there
"
is
s
which we miss
in
Life."
Walt
"
In
chants.
s
a strength, a ruggedness, an out
door and elemental somewhat that
s
makes them
true poems,
in
Walt
s
chants
and one of the
THE POET PIONEER 59 grand forms of literary expression. We do not look
Whitman
for
ordinary forms, but
s
forms to
we look
for
displace
them
the
to rise, if
they have not already done so, to a recognized position as a needed and essential
form of
liter
ary expression; that has an equal worth with
any other, and that has a strength and freedom that can never be attained in rhyme and meter.
Whitman
then was a poet, even though, as he
he did not
says,
make poetry with
reference to
parts.
To
who want sweet songs of domestic of course others like Longfellow sentiments, will be preferred; but to those who are strong those
enough
to receive
a gospel,
a
and
it,
Walt
s
poetry will come as
a gospel of beauty, even
new and strange form. The second great objection
poet
is
to
though
Whitman
because of the sexual character of
in
as a
many
Now we
of his images.
must begin by under standing the place of sex in Walt s scheme of things that
all is
he
is
going to speak of
good.
all,
and
to
show
Inklings of the Hegelian phi
losophy have come through to Walt, he
finds
WALT WHITMAN
60
everything has a place in the world purposes. it is manifest that Walt cannot carry out
Now
and omit so big a part of human life and experience as sex. This would cause a sad
this idea,
break true,
And
sex has no place.
legitimate place, then
Then again is
His philosophy
scheme.
his
in if
believe
I
healthy and sane.
it
is
clean
if
and honorable.
Walt
s
It
true his sex
is
not
is
sex has a
treatment of sex is,
as
Symonds points out, not that of the boudoir, the alcove, neither is
is
it
the sex of the brothel.
It
the clean healthy relation between the male
Walt
and female.
as
is
much
against vice as
against prudishness, he would have us recognize that, "
If anything
And
is
sacred, the
human body man is the
the glory and sweet of a
is
sacred,
token of
man
hood untainted;
And
in
man
body
Walt
is
s
or
woman,
a clean, strong, firm-fibered
beautiful as the most beautiful
face."
scheme then made treatment of sex
necessary, he
is
to voice a protest against that
dishonor which asceticism has placed upon the
human body.
And
his
demand
for freedom in
THE POET PIONEER makes
literature
speak of he says, "
I will
show
imperative that he be free to
it
He
sex.
of the
61
declares
it
purpose when
his
male and the female that either
is
but the equal of the other;
And
am
sexual organs and acts, I
you with courageous
voice,
determined to
and
to
tell
prove you
illustrious."
I
of
do not see how we can
Adam
blush,"
"
Children
criticise
"
if
";
these passages cause society to
as the English writer says,
worse for
prudishness.
so
much
need
to
remember,
never
are
all
felt that
even though his
Camden
it
he erred
in his
aroused so
talks,
all this
decency,
nasty
naked under our
he says,
clothes."
"
Mad Walt
treatment of sex,
much "
Heine
as
once remarked to the protesting matron,
am we
the
We need to get away from
society."
We
"
stir; in
one of
All this fear of in
noise about purity and sex
too nasty to
make compromise
His abhorrence of
vice
was
is
with."
strong, he tells
us "
Have you body?
seen the fool
who
corrupted his
own
live
WALT WHITMAN
62
Or
the fool
They
who
corrupted her
own
live
body?
can not conceal themselves.
In treating sex, for sex and
its
Whitman was
simply true
passions are one of the great
facts of the universe,
and we can not longer pay
If any attention to the Anthony Comstocks. these over-sensitive and over-conservative peo ple
had
their way,
the
Reformation,
we should never have had
the
Renaissance or the French
Revolution we should never have had Voltaire, :
the French Encyclopaedia, Shelley or Byron.
But there
is
another item to be called up, did
Walt sometimes go
He
he did.
ophy and
too far?
Frankly
I
think
could have carried out his philos
at the
same time payed
a
little
more
commonly accepted feelings of Granting that Walt was writing for
respect to the society.
the divine average and not the so-called refined,
yet
it
bold. cious."
"
The
sometimes pretty His images are as Symonds says auda Take this one for instance
must be confessed he
hairy wild bee that
and down
is
murmurs and hankers up
THE POET PIONEER That
63
grips the full-grown lady flower^ curves
with amorous holds
her
to
legs,
takes
himself
upon her will of her, and
his
tremulous
and
tight
till
satisfied."
or again, "
I
turn the bride-groom out of bed, and stay with the bride myself;
I
tighten her all night to
my
thighs and
Such passages, and there were first edition,
still
lips."
others in his
us feel that
Walt did not have
respect for the taste of society.
quite
And
of the great abuses of the sexual
little
enough view
in
life
humanity has made, most of us will think a
make
that were later removed, these
which it
were
better not to have been so bold.
But summing all up, Walt Whitman was a poet, and none the less a poet because a pioneer.
His work
is
poetry, though
rhyme and meter: and it
it is
it
throws
off
the
clean poetry, though
uses sex images.
He may have overdone both, as it is plain he did. He is ofttimes too audacious with his sex,
he ofttimes drifts into the uncouth and cat-
WALT WHITMAN
64
aloguing (Emerson told him
and Emerson
this,
was wise) yet his chants are great poems. Leaves of Grass indeed strike up the song "
"
for the
new
"
world."
His work
and to appreciate
duction,
says, to
come
it,
is
one needs, as
to see that
it
it
is
Burroughs than mere literary product, that pression of a
Walt
s
new
literary quality, but quality.
work
more
is
the ex
gospel.
work had
A
a great pro
from
a value quite apart
we
will not
minimize that
that could grip so fastidious
a person as Stevenson, could for him, as he says, "
Turn
the world upside down, blow
space a thousand cobwebs of
some
illusion,"
And Walt was
merit.
had the poet
s
soul.
He
him
into
must have
a poet because he
was the true mystic
with eyes to see farther than the slow-going
plodding mortals. As a lad we see him lying on the sand and looking into the sea, and feeling its
awe and mysticism.
In the
robust
traveling over the city or up and states,
he
sees
more than
cars
the
and teams,
houses and roads, he sees the spirit thing.
down
man
in
every
THE POET PIONEER
65
A convalescent we find him roaming the lanes, and
beneath the
sitting
sitting for
Creek;
willows
of Timber
hours and days caressed by
the air and sunshine, and feeling
all
the
em
bracing love of the Universe.
The
old
edge and set,
man
sitting
driving his horse into the sea-
an hour enraptured of the sun
getting the cold that brings his death, here
we have the mystic, who can see in "
Oxen
The
the poet.
observer
that rattle the chain,
or halt in the leafy shade:
What
do you express
seems to
It
me more
in
your
than
eyes,
all
the print of the
world."
The man who
He
can see these things is a poet. has the soul of a poet, and his productions
bear the stamp of true poetry, and other poets can not disown him, even if he uses different
forms from
theirs.
"
Surely whosoever speaks to
him or her
As
the water steps
me
in
the right voice,
I will follow,
follows
the moon,
anywhere round the
silently
globe."
with
fluid
WALT WHITMAN
66
If this be not a poet
expression of the re
s
sponse of one person to the appeal of another personality, then I
poetic expression
man had soul of
at loss to
As Emerson
know what a Whit said, "
the terrible eyes to see back into the
everything,"
also the poet
saw.
am
is.
s
and
genius to
I
am
tell
sure that he
had
the world what he
CHAPTER SEVEN PLACE AMONG THE PROPHETS
HIS
Walt Whitman.
I
here announce myself a follower of
I
have caught his vision of myself
I
have caught
I
have caught his vision of the Universe. see life as he saw it, sincere, sane and hearty,
I
To
his vision of
;
humanity
;
be lived simply, free from imaginary
Above
creeds,
conflicting
lines,
warring systems and petty
standards.
Walt
My
leads
me
down on
to the heights, I look
all sides,
soul becomes strong, strong enough for the
Open
Road, Henceforth I
I
know no
fellowship with
And
I
follow
all, I
down
Whitman my
classes, sinners
enjoy
the long
it
all,
nor
the
saints,
world
is
leader.
R. D. will be a long time before
ITcan be
good,
brown path with Walt
accepted by
all.
He
S.
Walt Whitman shares the fate
of the strong personalities, of the prophets, of 67
WALT WHITMAN
68
To
have the good-will of every one, we need to say nothing, do nothing, But as with Jesus, strong souls be nothing. creating a division.
become
a rising to some, a falling to some.
sane view of those
who
pressed by John Jay
Emerson.
Walt
reject
Chapman
Chapman shows
us
estimate
standpoint the "
says,
Walt Whitman
is
is
The
best ex
in his essay
how Walt
to the thoroughly conventional eye, a
is
just.
on
looks
from such
Chapman who
a type of those
after a sincere attempt to take a place in or
ganized
revolt
society,
"
Chapman continues, how life appears to worker, Walt
man who
tells
I
from
its
drudgery."
have often wondered
the tramp, the wandering
me.
He
is
the type of the
has tasted the joy of being in the open,
of being disreputable and unashamed, he has
reached an experience where
life
has for him
and upon him society has no hold." This estimate is just from the standpoint of no
terrors,
conventional society.
The
question remains to be decided however,
whether society right.
We
is
right or
whether Walt was
can only say for the present, that
AMONG THE PROPHETS
69
each year an increasing number of souls come to feel like
Walt, and hence come to regard him as
As
a prophet.
When man truer,
when
Clarence
Darrow
says for us,
has grown simpler and saner and the fever of civilization has been
subdued and the pestilence cured; when man no longer deny and revile the universal
shall
mother who gave him
birth, then
man
In the clear light of that
s
day
will
come.
Walt Whit
regenerated time, when the world looks back
on the doubt and mist and confusion of to-day,
Walt Whitman truest, noblest
will stand forth, the greatest,
prophet of the age, a
tainted by artificial life false
standards of his
man un
and unmoved by the time."
Whitman
has
sometimes by enthusiastic followers been likened to Plato, but this
is
far
from the
point, he
is
rather to be likened to Isaiah and the other
rugged Old Testament Prophets. Or he might be likened as Bucke says, to one of our primitive Aryan ancestors who suddenly comes back to life.
Walt was not
a philosopher, not a scholar,
of organized knowledge, of systematic learning
WALT WHITMAN
yo he knew
"
little.
Says Carpenter,
Of
that vast
structure of classified information that
Whitman had no
scholarship,
we
call
he
conception,
handled books clumsily and was not a book man."
This
Walt "
s
is
a true estimate, one
who
looks into
writings, his Journals, prose writings,
Camden
Talks,"
etc.,
expecting to find any
and dried philosophy will be sadly disap Walt had no carefully wrought out pointed. philosophy, he was a seer, a poet, a prophet, cut
And Walt was
pure and simple.
a prophet
He was the logical successor
First, as a poet
of Burns, Blake and Shelley in poetry, and his conception of life belongs with such men as Rousseau, Voltaire, Paine, Mazzini, Emerson, Tolstoy, Thoreau.
The new
self-consciousness, social enthusiasm
and perception of Nature, with the new interpre tation of religion, which were the great ideas that
actuated
these
men,
pushed along. Walt was a prophet of of literature.
He
a
Walt
felt
new school of
and
poetry,
stands a John the Baptist
AMONG THE PROPHETS
71
crying for a literature that shall be wider, social,
democratic
in scope.
He
tells
the world
it
can
not longer be content with a poetry, however beautiful
its
modern
the
technique, unless intellectual
it
be
in
touch with
movements and the
pulsing heart of man.
Of
course
Walt had
to feel this
way
for he
was, secondly a pioneer democrat, a prophet of
new democracy.
Thoreau meeting him he is our greatest demogoes away saying, crat." And Carpenter sums him up so well the
"
Whitman was the genuine titanic with democrat; optimism he believed that the hope of humanity lay in these unedu when he
cated,
"
says,
illiterate
hordes.
Here dwelt
exhaustible energy, here he forces of
And
saw the great
in
vital
humanity."
thirdly,
Whitman was prophet
kind of knowledge.
him
the
of a
new
His knowledge came to
as a certain illumination, an intuition, rather
than from reasoning processes.
And
he
tells
us that the final test of truth shall be whether
we
feel
appeal
it
is
so.
By which he means
not to the
intellect,
that the final
but to the sense, the
WALT WHITMAN
72 emotions,
whole
the
of
Matters
us.
fun
damental are not to be settled by speculative argument in the realm of pure intellect, but we rather than reason
intuitively detect truth,
Reason
out.
at
we
analyze what
the
best
can
it
only seek to
already know, and ditto science.
So the great interpreters are not those who register facts of science, but those
Whitman
sense.
And was
"
cool, clear
touch our
stood for the validity of the
intuition part of us.
The
who
logic,"
wards can send us
all
capital punishment, but
dull thud of the victim
he not wise?
of a Calvin or an
to hell.
It
Ed
can justify
when Tolstoy hears the s head as it drops from
the guillotine to the basket, he does not stop for u or logic reasoning," he knows this thing "
is "
wrong.
"
As Penn had
they can believe in
out the aid of
said of the Indians,
God and
immortality with
metaphysics,"
so
Walt would
declare of us to-day.
But Walt was supreme
as a prophet, in being
the prophet of a man, the best kind of a man,
the
new man,
age, the
man
the
modern man,
the fruit of the
of the coming society.
"
Com-
AMONG THE PROPHETS rade,"
"
he
man.?
know
we
worshipers,
He
weaknesses.
no book, who touches We are no blind hero
this is
cries,
this touches a
73
had
Walt
that a
certain
had
his
egotism,
which he frankly admitted, glorified in, all of which will ever seem a little coarse. His use of
Emerson
s letter,
his writing press notices
about
himself, his arising at the close of Ingersoll s
eulogy to receive the applause, his preparation of his own tomb to become a sort of Mecca for the faithful,
all
of this has the element of the
"
poseur."
Again there was rowness
in
his
a certain arrogance
and nar
make-up, he often needlessly
quarreled with good friends like Doyle and
O
Connor, he did not always seem to appreciate their deeds in his behalf, he had a lack of frank ness in
many
economic radical a
matters.
He
did not grasp the
of
democracy though so champion of it, nor did he always features
appreciate the efforts of those working for
great sacrifice, as for instance
it
at
when he praised
His poetry is ofttimes the German Emperor. tiresome and needlessly burdened. But after all,
WALT WHITMAN
74 what man
many
is
whom we
there of
can not say as
things in criticism of him.
John Burroughs, perhaps the
who knew Walt, had
student of Walt, ship, speaks of
Walt "
and patient and
healthy
mold every way. pathetic
man."
England, stated after a impresses
me
built
in
a large
a fresh, strong,
of
sym Walt
that of a large, tolerant, tender, restful
sympathetic,
and
was a pre endowed with
The atmosphere
nature.
Whitman was
had
gentle
He
richly
qualities,
He
manner;
home Walt was
conciliatory.
manly man,
human
his friend
the man, in this
In his
says Burroughs,
eminently
sanest, ablest
Dr. Johnson of
visit to
Whitman,
with a sense of strength,
"
He
intel
power and winning sweetness/ Joel Chandler Harris said of Walt when he died,
lectual
He
was a man broad and deep, and men must have broad and deep sympathies to possess the "
password "
him,
No
disliked
so
Walt
Bucke says of man ever liked so many things and
to
few
Whitman."
as
sounds pleased him.
Whitman,
He
all
sights
and
never argued or dis He never
puted, he never spoke about money.
AMONG THE PROPHETS
75
complained or grumbled about the weather, He never swore, pain, illness or any thing else. 5
and apparently was never angry or afraid. These qualities in Walt have led some of enthusiastic disciples to regard
him
his
as a great
restorer of a natural religion, and they have
placed him by the side of the Founder of Prof. James, looking at him from Christianity. "
the scientific standpoint says,
He
is
the su
preme example of the inability to feel any evil, and in many respects he is in the genuine lineage of the after
prophets."
all
We must conclude then, that
has been said,
Walt Whitman
was
all criticisms
a
made, that
large-souled,
great
man
of exceptional power, and possessing a large measure of what we speak of He loves all, he feels for all; he as genius.
hearted loving
refuses to send the boys
room on
away from
his sick
the noisy Fourth of July lest their sport
be spoiled, he puts his sheltering arm about the
weak, the unprotected, the outcasts.
Walt Whitman has
left us I believe, the ex
ample of a fine spirit, a spirit that for contain ing the graces of the Great Galilean has been
WALT WHITMAN
76
equaled by only three other historic characters, St.
Francis, Burns
He
and Tolstoy.
man, a man to follow, and the out Leaves of pourings of his soul as found in will furnish to those who come to them Grass,"
was
a
"
impulse and emotion,
for stimulus,
view of
life
who come
and a more robust
taste.
Walt Whitman
poems
to
s
a
To
larger
those
for pretty
technique or cut and dried philosophy, there is bound to be disappointment, but to those who
come
to
them for suggestion for thought and
emotion, for a touch with a large soul, with a prophet,
I
am
sure satisfaction awaits..
TT WQ3JfIA
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