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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/34417-h.zip b/34417-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..86c730f --- /dev/null +++ b/34417-h.zip diff --git a/34417-h/34417-h.htm b/34417-h/34417-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..79d27b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/34417-h/34417-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2799 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<HTML> +<HEAD> + +<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> + +<TITLE> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of Walt Whitman, An Address, by Robert G. Ingersoll +</TITLE> + +<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> +BODY { color: Black; + background: White; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +P {text-indent: 4% } + +P.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +P.t1 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 200%; + text-align: center } + +P.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + text-align: center } + +P.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: center } + +P.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: center } + +P.t5 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 50%; + text-align: center } + +P.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +P.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.footnote {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +P.transnote {text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +P.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +H4.h4center { margin-left: 0; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + float: none ; + clear: both ; + text-align: center } + +IMG.imgcenter { margin-left: auto; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: auto; } + +</STYLE> + +</HEAD> + +<BODY> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Walt Whitman, by Robert G. Ingersoll + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Walt Whitman + An Address + +Author: Robert G. Ingersoll + +Release Date: September 24, 2011 [EBook #34417] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WALT WHITMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT="WALT WHITMAN" BORDER="2"> +<H4 CLASS="h4center"> +WALT WHITMAN +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t1"> +WALT WHITMAN. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +AN ADDRESS +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +BY +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +ROBERT G. INGERSOLL +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +"LIBERTY IN LITERATURE." +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +Delivered in Philadelphia, Oct. 21, 1890. Also Funeral<BR> +Address Delivered at Harleigh, Camden, N. J.,<BR> + March 30, 1892.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +WITH PORTRAIT OF WHITMAN. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +AUTHORIZED EDITION. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +New York; +<BR> +THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY, +<BR> +28 Lafayette Place. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +Copyrighted, 1890, +<BR> +BY +<BR> +THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap00b"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +TESTIMONIAL +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +TO +</P> + +<P CLASS="t1"> +WALT WHITMAN. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Of all the placid hours in his peaceful life, those that Walt Whitman +spent on the stage of Horticultural Hall last night must have been +among the most gratifying, says the Philadelphia Press of October 22, +1890. To a testimonial, intended to cheer his declining years, not +only in a complimentary sense, came some eighteen hundred or more +people to listen to a tribute to the aged poet by Col. Robert G. +Ingersoll, such as seldom falls to the lot of living man to hear about +himself. +</P> + +<P> +On the stage sat many admirers of the venerable torch-bearer of modern +poetic thought, as Colonel Ingersoll described him, young and old, men +and women. There were white beards, but none were so white as that of +the author of "Leaves of Grass." He sat calm and sedate in his easy +wheeled chair, with his usual garb of gray, with his cloudy white hair +falling over his white, turned-down collar that must have been three +inches wide. No burst of eloquence from the orator's lips disturbed +that equanimity; no tribute of applause moved him from his habitual +calm. +</P> + +<P> +And when the lecturer, having concluded, said, "We have met to-night to +honor ourselves by honoring the author of 'Leaves of Grass,'" and the +audience started to leave the hall, the man they had honored reached +forward with his cane and attracted Colonel Ingersoll's attention. +</P> + +<P> +"Do not leave yet," said Colonel Ingersoll, "Mr. Whitman has a word to +say." +</P> + +<P> +This is what he said, and no more characteristic thing ever fell from +the poet's lips or flowed from his pen: +</P> + +<P> +"After all, my friends, the main factors being the curious testimony +called personal presence and face to face meeting, I have come here to +be among you and show myself, and thank you with my living voice for +coming, and Robert Ingersoll for speaking. And so with such brief +testimony of showing myself, and such good will and gratitude, I bid +you hail and farewell." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +THE ADDRESS. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +<I>Let us Put Wreaths on the Brows of the Living.</I> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +I. +</P> + +<P> +In the year 1855 the American people knew but little of books. Their +ideals, their models, were English. Young and Pollok, Addison and +Watts were regarded as great poets. Some of the more reckless read +Thomson's "Seasons" and the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott. A +few, not quite orthodox, delighted in the mechanical monotony of Pope, +and the really wicked—those lost to all religious shame—were +worshipers of Shakespeare. The really orthodox Protestant, untroubled +by doubts, considered Milton the greatest poet of them all. Byron and +Shelley were hardly respectable—not to be read by young persons. It +was admitted on all hands that Burns was a child of nature of whom his +mother was ashamed and proud. +</P> + +<P> +In the blessed year aforesaid, candor, free and sincere speech, were +under the ban. Creeds at that time were entrenched behind statutes, +prejudice, custom, ignorance, stupidity, Puritanism and slavery; that +is to say, slavery of mind and body. +</P> + +<P> +Of course it always has been, and forever will be, impossible for +slavery, or any kind or form of injustice, to produce a great poet. +There are hundreds of verse makers and writers on the side of +wrong—enemies of progress—but they are not poets, they are not men of +genius. +</P> + +<P> +At this time a young man—he to whom this testimonial is given—he upon +whose head have fallen the snows of more than seventy winters—this +man, born within the sound of the sea, gave to the world a book, +"Leaves of Grass." This book was, and is, the true transcript of a +soul. The man is unmasked. No drapery of hypocrisy, no pretense, no +fear. The book was as original in form as in thought. All customs +were forgotten or disregarded, all rules broken—nothing mechanical—no +imitation—spontaneous, running and winding like a river, multitudinous +in its thoughts as the waves of the sea—nothing mathematical or +measured. In everything a touch of chaos—lacking what is called form +as clouds lack form, but not lacking the splendor of sunrise or the +glory of sunset. It was a marvelous collection and aggregation of +fragments, hints, suggestions, memories, and prophecies, weeds and +flowers, clouds and clods, sights and sounds, emotions and passions, +waves, shadows and constellations. +</P> + +<P> +His book was received by many with disdain, with horror, with +indignation and protest—by the few as a marvelous, almost miraculous, +message to the world—full of thought, philosophy, poetry and music. +</P> + +<P> +In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. A great soul +appears and fills the world with new and marvelous harmonies. In his +words is the old Promethean flame. The heart of nature beats and +throbs in his line. The respectable prudes and pedagogues sound the +alarm, and cry, or rather screech: "Is this a book for a young person?" +</P> + +<P> +A poem true to life as a Greek statue—candid as nature—fills these +barren souls with fear. +</P> + +<P> +They forget that drapery about the perfect was suggested by immodesty. +</P> + +<P> +The provincial prudes, and others of like mold, pretend that love is a +duty rather than a passion—a kind of self-denial—not an overmastering +joy. They preach the gospel of pretense and pantalettes. In the +presence of sincerity, of truth, they cast down their eyes and endeavor +to feel immodest. To them, the most beautiful thing is hypocrisy +adorned with a blush. +</P> + +<P> +They have no idea of an honest, pure passion, glorying in its +strength—intense, intoxicated with the beautiful, giving even to +inanimate things pulse and motion, and that transfigures, ennobles, and +idealizes the object of its adoration. +</P> + +<P> +They do not walk the streets of the city of life—they explore the +sewers; they stand in the gutters and cry "Unclean!" They pretend that +beauty is a snare; that love is a Delilah; that the highway of joy is +the broad road, lined with flowers and filled with perfume, leading to +the city of eternal sorrow. +</P> + +<P> +Since the year 1855 the American people have developed; they are +somewhat acquainted with the literature of the world. They have +witnessed the most tremendous of revolutions, not only upon the fields +of battle, but in the world of thought. The American citizen has +concluded that it is hardly worth while being a sovereign unless he has +the right to think for himself. +</P> + +<P> +And now, from this hight, with the vantage-ground of to-day, I propose +to examine this book and to state, in a general way, what Walt Whitman +has done, what he has accomplished, and the place he has won in the +world of thought. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +II. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +THE RELIGION OF THE BODY. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman stood, when he published his book, where all stand +to-night—on the perpetually moving line where history ends and +prophecy begins. He was full of life to the very tips of his +fingers—brave, eager, candid, joyous with health. He was acquainted +with the past. He knew something of song and story, of philosophy and +art—much of the heroic dead, of brave suffering, of the thoughts of +men, the habits of the people—rich as well as poor—familiar with +labor, a friend of wind and wave, touched by love and +friendship—liking the open road, enjoying the fields and paths, the +crags—friend of the forest—feeling that he was free—neither master +nor slave—willing that all should know his thoughts—open as the sky, +candid as nature—and he gave his thoughts, his dreams, his +conclusions, his hopes, and his mental portrait to his fellow-men. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman announced the gospel of the body. He confronted the +people. He denied the depravity of man. He insisted that love is not +a crime; that men and women should be proudly natural; that they need +not grovel on the earth and cover their faces for shame. He taught the +dignity and glory of the father and mother; the sacredness of maternity. +</P> + +<P> +Maternity, tender and pure as the tear of pity, holy as suffering—the +crown, the flower, the ecstasy of love. +</P> + +<P> +People had been taught from bibles and from creeds that maternity was a +kind of crime; that the woman should be purified by some ceremony in +some temple built in honor of some god. This barbarism was attacked in +"Leaves of Grass." +</P> + +<P> +The glory of simple life was sung; a declaration of independence was +made for each and all. +</P> + +<P> +And yet this appeal to manhood and to womanhood was misunderstood. It +was denounced simply because it was in harmony with the great trend of +nature. To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy. +</P> + +<P> +It was not the fashion for people to speak or write their thoughts. We +were flooded with the literature of hypocrisy. The writers did not +faithfully describe the worlds in which they lived. They endeavored to +make a fashionable world. They pretended that the cottage or the hut +in which they dwelt was a palace, and they called the little area in +which they threw their slops their domain, their realm, their empire. +They were ashamed of the real, of what their world actually was. They +imitated; that is to say, they told lies, and these lies filled the +literature of most lands. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman defended the sacredness of love, the purity of +passion—the passion that builds every home and fills the world with +art and song. +</P> + +<P> +They cried out: "He is a defender of passion—he is a libertine! He +lives in the mire. He lacks spirituality!" +</P> + +<P> +Whoever differs with the multitude, especially with a led +multitude—that is to say, with a multitude of taggers—will find out +from their leaders that he has committed an unpardonable sin. It is a +crime to travel a road of your own, especially if you put up +guide-boards for the information of others. +</P> + +<P> +Many, many centuries ago Epicurus, the greatest man of his century, and +of many centuries before and after, said: "Happiness is the only good; +happiness is the supreme end." This man was temperate, frugal, +generous, noble—and yet through all these years he has been denounced +by the hypocrites of the world as a mere eater and drinker. +</P> + +<P> +It was said that Whitman had exaggerated the importance of love—that +he had made too much of this passion. Let me say that no poet—not +excepting Shakespeare—has had imagination enough to exaggerate the +importance of human love—a passion that contains all hights and all +depths—ample as space, with a sky in which glitter all constellations, +and that has within it all storms, all lightnings, all wrecks and +ruins, all griefs, all sorrows, all shadows, and all the joy and +sunshine of which the heart and brain are capable. +</P> + +<P> +No writer must be measured by a word or paragraph. He is to be +measured by his work—by the tendency, not of one line, but by the +tendency of all. +</P> + +<P> +Which way does the great stream tend? Is it for good or evil? Are the +motives high and noble, or low and infamous? +</P> + +<P> +We cannot measure Shakespeare by a few lines, neither can we measure +the Bible by a few chapters, nor "Leaves of Grass" by a few paragraphs. +In each there are many things that I neither approve nor believe—but +in all books you will find a mingling of wisdom and foolishness, of +prophecies and mistakes—in other words, among the excellencies there +will be defects. The mine is not all gold, or all silver, or all +diamonds—there are baser metals. The trees of the forest are not all +of one size. On some of the highest there are dead and useless limbs, +and there may be growing beneath the bushes, weeds, and now and then a +poisonous vine. +</P> + +<P> +If I were to edit the great books of the world, I might leave out some +lines and I might leave out the best. I have no right to make of my +brain a sieve and say that only that which passes through belongs to +the rest of the human race. I claim the right to choose. I give that +right to all. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman had the courage to express his thought—the candor to tell +the truth. And here let me say it gives me joy—a kind of perfect +satisfaction—to look above the bigoted bats, the satisfied owls and +wrens and chickadees, and see the great eagle poised, circling higher +and higher, unconscious of their existence. And it gives me joy, a +kind of perfect satisfaction, to look above the petty passions and +jealousies of small and respectable people—above the considerations of +place and power and reputation, and see a brave, intrepid man. +</P> + +<P> +It must be remembered that the American people had separated from the +Old World—that we had declared not only the independence of colonies, +but the independence of the individual. We had done more—we had +declared that the state could no longer be ruled by the Church, and +that the Church could not be ruled by the state, and that the +individual could not be ruled by the Church. These declarations were +in danger of being forgotten. We needed a new voice, sonorous, loud +and clear, a new poet for America for the new epoch, somebody to chant +the morning song of the new day. +</P> + +<P> +The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind, fascinates and +instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please +the public. They flatter the stupid and pander to the prejudice of +their readers. They write for the market—making books as other +mechanics make shoes. They have no message—they bear no torch—they +are simply the slaves of customers. The books they manufacture are +handled by "the trade;" they are regarded as harmless. The pulpit does +not object; the young person can read the monotonous pages without a +blush—or a thought. On the title pages of these books you will find +the imprint of the great publishers—on the rest of the pages, nothing. +These books might be prescribed for insomnia. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +III. +</P> + +<P> +Men of talent, men of business, touch life upon few sides. They travel +but the beaten path. The creative spirit is not in them. They regard +with suspicion a poet who touches life on every side. They have little +confidence in that divine thing called sympathy, and they do not and +cannot understand the man who enters into the hopes, the aims, and the +feelings of all others. +</P> + +<P> +In all genius there is the touch of chaos—a little of the vagabond; +and the successful tradesman, the man who buys and sells, or manages a +bank, does not care to deal with a person who has only poems for +collaterals—they have a little fear of such people, and regard them as +the awkward countryman does a sleight-of-hand performer. +</P> + +<P> +In every age in which books have been produced the governing class, the +respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius. If what +are known as the best people could have had their way, if the pulpit +had been consulted—the provincial moralists—the works of Shakespeare +would have been suppressed. Not a line would have reached our time. +And the same may be said of every dramatist of his age. +</P> + +<P> +If the Scotch Kirk could have decided, nothing would have been known of +Robert Burns. If the good people, the orthodox, could have had their +say, not one line of Voltaire would now be known. All the plates of +the French Encyclopedia would have been destroyed with the thousands +that were destroyed. Nothing would have been known of D'Alembert, +Grimm, Diderot, or any of the Titans who warred against the thrones and +altars and laid the foundation of modern literature not only, but what +is of far greater moment, universal education. +</P> + +<P> +It is not too much to say that every book now held in high esteem would +have been destroyed, if those in authority could have had their will. +Every book of modern times, that has a real value, that has enlarged +the intellectual horizon of mankind, that has developed the brain, that +has furnished real food for thought, can be found in the Index +Expurgatorius of the Papacy, and nearly every one has been commended to +the free minds of men by the denunciations of Protestants. +</P> + +<P> +If the guardians of society, the protectors of "young persons," could +have had their way, we should have known nothing of Byron or Shelley. +The voices that thrill the world would now be silent. If authority +could have had its way, the world would have been as ignorant now as it +was when our ancestors lived in holes or hung from dead limbs by their +prehensile tails. +</P> + +<P> +But we are not forced to go very far back. If Shakespeare had been +published for the first time now, those divine plays—greater than +continents and seas, greater even than the constellations of the +midnight sky—would be excluded from the mails by the decision of the +present enlightened postmaster-general. +</P> + +<P> +The poets have always lived in an ideal world, and that ideal world has +always been far better than the real world. As a consequence, they +have forever roused, not simply the imagination, but the energies—the +enthusiasm of the human race. +</P> + +<P> +The great poets have been on the side of the oppressed—of the +downtrodden. They have suffered with the imprisoned and the enslaved, +and whenever and wherever man has suffered for the right, wherever the +hero has been stricken down—whether on field or scaffold—some man of +genius has walked by his side, and some poet has given form and +expression, not simply to his deeds, but to his aspirations. +</P> + +<P> +From the Greek and Roman world we still hear the voices of a few. The +poets, the philosophers, the artists and the orators still speak. +Countless millions have been covered by the waves of oblivion, but the +few who uttered the elemental truths, who had sympathy for the whole +human race, and who were great enough to prophesy a grander day, are as +alive to-night as when they roused, by their bodily presence, by their +living voices, by their works of art, the enthusiasm of their fellow +men. +</P> + +<P> +Think of the respectable people, of the men of wealth and position, +those who dwelt in mansions, children of success, who went down to the +grave voiceless, and whose names we do not know. Think of the vast +multitudes, the endless processions, that entered the caverns of +eternal night—leaving no thought—no truth as a legacy to mankind! +</P> + +<P> +The great poets have sympathized with the people. They have uttered in +all ages the human cry. Unbought by gold, unawed by power, they have +lifted high the torch that illuminates the world. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +IV. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman is in the highest sense a believer in democracy. He knows +that there is but one excuse for government—the preservation of +liberty; to the end that man may be happy. He knows that there is but +one excuse for any institution, secular and religious—the preservation +of liberty; and that there is but one excuse for schools, for universal +education, for the ascertainment of facts, namely, the preservation of +liberty. He resents the arrogance and cruelty of power. He has sworn +never to be tyrant or slave. He has solemnly declared: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,<BR> +By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their<BR> + counterpart of on the same terms.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This one declaration covers the entire ground. It is a declaration of +independence, and it is also a declaration of justice, that is to say, +a declaration of the independence of the individual, and a declaration +that all shall be free. The man who has this spirit can truthfully say: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I have taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown.<BR> +I am for those that have never been master'd.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +There is in Whitman what he calls "The boundless impatience of +restraint"—together with that sense of justice which compelled him to +say, "Neither a servant nor a master am I." +</P> + +<P> +He was wise enough to know that giving others the same rights that he +claims for himself could not harm him, and he was great enough to say: +"As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess +the same." +</P> + +<P> +He felt as all should feel, that the liberty of no man is safe unless +the liberty of each is safe. +</P> + +<P> +There is in our country a little of the old servile spirit, a little of +the bowing and cringing to others. Many Americans do not understand +that the officers of the government are simply the servants of the +people. Nothing is so demoralizing as the worship of place. Whitman +has reminded the people of this country that they are supreme, and he +has said to them: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The President is there in the White House for you, it is not you who are here for him,<BR> +The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them.<BR> +Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you,<BR> +Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere are tallied in you.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He describes the ideal American citizen—the one who +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Says indifferently and alike "How are you, friend?" to the President at his levee,<BR> +And he says "Good-day, my brother," to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Long ago, when the politicians were wrong, when the judges were +subservient, when the pulpit was a coward, Walt Whitman shouted: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Man shall not hold property in man.<BR> +The least developed person on earth is just as important and<BR> + sacred to himself or herself as the most develop'd person<BR> + is to himself or herself.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This is the very soul of true democracy. +</P> + +<P> +Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It +is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It +is both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman utters the elemental truths and is the poet of democracy. +He is also the poet of individuality. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +V. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +INDIVIDUALITY. +</P> + +<P> +In order to protect the liberties of a nation, we must protect the +individual. A democracy is a nation of free individuals. The +individuals are not to be sacrificed to the nation. The nation exists +only for the purpose of guarding and protecting the individuality of +men and women. Walt Whitman has told us that: "The whole theory of the +universe is directed unerringly to one single individual—namely to +You." +</P> + +<P> +And he has also told us that the greatest city—the greatest nation—is +"where the citizen is always the head and ideal." +</P> + +<P> +And that +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +A great city is that which has the greatest men and women,<BR> +If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +By this test maybe the greatest city on the continent to-night is +Camden. +</P> + +<P> +This poet has asked of us this question: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The man who asks this question has left no impress of his lips in the +dust, and has no dirt upon his knees. +</P> + +<P> +He was great enough to say: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but its own.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He carries the idea of individuality to its utmost hight: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred<BR> + ways, but that man or woman is as good as God?<BR> +And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Glorying in individuality, in the freedom of the soul, he cries out: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!<BR> +To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!<BR> +To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!<BR> +To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!<BR> +To be indeed a God!<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And again; +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +O the joy of a manly self-hood!<BR> +To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,<BR> +To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,<BR> +To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,<BR> +To speak with full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest.<BR> +To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Walt Whitman is willing to stand alone. He is sufficient unto himself, +and he says: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +Strong and content I travel the open road.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +He is one of +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors, as to say "Who are you?"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And not only this, but he has the courage to say: "Nothing, not God, is +greater to one than one's self." +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman is the poet of Individuality—the defender of the rights +of each for the sake of all—and his sympathies are as wide as the +world. He is the defender of the whole race. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +VI. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +HUMANITY. +</P> + +<P> +The great poet is intensely human—infinitely sympathetic—entering +into the joys and griefs of others, bearing their burdens, knowing +their sorrows. Brain without heart is not much; they must act +together. When the respectable people of the North, the rich, the +successful, were willing to carry out the Fugitive Slave law, Walt +Whitman said: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,<BR> +Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,<BR> +I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with the ooze of my skin,<BR> +I fall on the weeds and stones,<BR> +The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,<BR> +Taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head with whip-stocks.<BR> +Agonies are one of my changes of garments,<BR> +I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person....<BR> +I ... see myself in prison shaped like another man,<BR> +And feel the dull unintermitted pain.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch,<BR> +It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd to him and walk by his side.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +Judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a helpless thing.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Of the very worst he had the infinite tenderness to say: "Not until the +sun excludes you will I exclude you." +</P> + +<P> +In this age of greed when houses and lands, and stocks and bonds, +outrank human life; when gold is more of value than blood, these words +should be read by all: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +When the psalm sings instead of the singer,<BR> +When the script preaches instead of the preacher,<BR> +When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk.<BR> +When I can touch the body of books by night or day, and when they touch my body back again,<BR> +When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince,<BR> +When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman's daughter,<BR> +When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are m friendly companions,<BR> +I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you.<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +VII. +</P> + +<P> +The poet is also a painter, a sculptor—he, too, deals in form and +color. The great poet is of necessity a great artist. With a few +words he creates pictures, filling his canvas with living men and +women—with those who feel and speak. Have you ever read the account +of the stage-driver's funeral? Let me read it: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the river, half-frozen mud in the streets,<BR> +A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of December,<BR> +A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, the cortege mostly drivers.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell,<BR> +The gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living alight, the hearse uncloses,<BR> +The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in,<BR> +The mound above is flatted with the spades—silence,<BR> +A minute—no one moves or speaks—it is done,<BR> +He is decently put away—is there any thing more?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking,<BR> +Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, ate hearty, drank hearty,<BR> +Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited<BR> + toward the last, sicken'd, was helped by a contribution,<BR> +Died, aged forty-one years—and that was his funeral.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Let me read you another description—one of a woman: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Behold a woman!<BR> +She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse,<BR> +The sun just shines on her old white head.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen,<BR> +Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters<BR> + spun it with the distaff and the wheel.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The melodious character of the earth,<BR> +The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go,<BR> +The justified mother of men.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Would you hear of an old-time sea fight? +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?<BR> +List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)<BR> +His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher<BR> + or truer, and never was, and never will be;<BR> +Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touched,<BR> +My captain lash'd fast with his own hands.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water,<BR> +On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the<BR> + first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,<BR> +Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the<BR> + gain, and five feet of water reported,<BR> +The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold<BR> + to give them a chance for themselves.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,<BR> +They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Our frigate takes fire,<BR> +The other asks if we demand quarter?<BR> +If our colors are struck and the fighting done?<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,<BR> +"We have not struck," he composedly cries, "we have just begun our part of the fighting."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Only three guns are in use,<BR> +One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast,<BR> +Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,<BR> +They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Not a moment's cease,<BR> +The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.<BR> +Serene stands the little captain,<BR> +He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,<BR> +His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.<BR> +Stretch'd and still lies the midnight,<BR> +Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,<BR> +Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass<BR> + to the one we have conquer'd,<BR> +The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders<BR> + through a countenance white as a sheet,<BR> +Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin,<BR> +The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully curl'd whiskers,<BR> +The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below,<BR> +The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty,<BR> +Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of<BR> + flesh upon the masts and spars,<BR> +Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe of waves,<BR> +Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent,<BR> +A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining,<BR> +Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields<BR> + by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors,<BR> +The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw,<BR> +Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and<BR> + long, dull, tapering groan.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Some people say that this is not poetry—that it lacks measure and +rhyme. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +VIII. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +WHAT IS POETRY? +</P> + +<P> +The whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. That +is to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, +colors and forms. The motions of the silent, invisible world, where +feeling glows and thought flames—that contains all seeds of +action—are made known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, +relations, uses and qualities—so that the visible universe is a +dictionary, an aggregation of symbols, by which and through which is +carried on the invisible commerce of thought. Each object is capable +of many meanings, or of being used in many ways to convey ideas or +states of feeling or of facts that take place in the world of the brain. +</P> + +<P> +The greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate +symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. Each +man occupies a world of his own. He is the only citizen of his world. +He is subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the +facts concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other +worlds. No two of these worlds are alike. They are of all kinds, from +the flat, barren, and uninteresting—from the small and shriveled and +worthless—to those whose rivers and mountains and seas and +constellations belittle and cheapen the visible world. The inhabitants +of these marvelous worlds have been the singers of songs, utterers of +great speech—the creators of art. +</P> + +<P> +And here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the +creator tells what passes in his own world—the imitator does not. The +imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. +He is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he +has traveled. +</P> + +<P> +In nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged—for the sake of +beauty, they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told +the story of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest +men and even the pity of tyrants. He, above all others, has added to +the intellectual beauty of the world. He has been the true creator of +language, and has left his impress on mankind. +</P> + +<P> +What I have said is not only true of poetry—it is true of all speech. +All are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. Words have +been invented and are being invented—for the reason that new powers +are found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses and +meanings. The growth of language is necessary on account of the +development of the human mind. The savage needs but few symbols—the +civilized many—the poet most of all. +</P> + +<P> +The old idea was, however, that the poet must be a rhymer. Before +printing was known, it was said: the rhyme assists the memory. That +excuse no longer exists. +</P> + +<P> +Is rhyme a necessary part of poetry? In my judgment, rhyme is a +hindrance to expression. The rhymer is compelled to wander from his +subject—to say more or less than he means—to introduce irrelevant +matter that interferes continually with the dramatic action and is a +perpetual obstruction to sincere utterance. +</P> + +<P> +All poems, of necessity, must be short. The highly and purely poetic +is the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. The +planting of the seed, the growth, the bud and flower must be rapid. +The spring must be quick and warm—the soil perfect, the sunshine and +rain enough—everything should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. In +poetry, as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden. +</P> + +<P> +The greatest poems are rhythmical. While rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm +seems to be the comrade of the poetic. Rhythm has a natural +foundation. Under emotion, the blood rises and falls, the muscles +contract and relax, and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as +the rise and fall of the sea. In the highest form of expression, the +thought should be in harmony with this natural ebb and flow. +</P> + +<P> +The highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. I have +sometimes thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own +garments, and that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the +speaker or writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself. +</P> + +<P> +The great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves. +</P> + +<P> +I do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured +intervals. Perfect time is the death of music. There should always be +room for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there may +be in the rhythm or time, the action itself should suggest perfect +freedom. +</P> + +<P> +A word more about rhythm. I believe that certain feelings and +passions—joy, grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular +movements in the brain—that every thought is accompanied by certain +physical phenomena. Now it may be that certain sounds, colors, and +forms produce the same molecular action in the brain that accompanies +certain feelings, and that these sounds, colors and forms produce +first, the molecular movements and these in their turn reproduce the +feelings, emotions and states of mind capable of producing the same or +like molecular movements. So that what we call heroic music, produces +the same molecular action in the brain—the same physical changes—that +are produced by the real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call +plaintive produce the same molecular movement in the brain that grief, +or the twilight of grief, actually produces. There may be a rhythmical +molecular movement belonging to each state of mind, that accompanies +each thought or passion, and it may be that music, or painting, or +sculpture, produces the same state of mind or feeling that produces the +music or painting or sculpture, by producing the same molecular +movements. +</P> + +<P> +All arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in +different ways—that is to say, they produce like states of mind and +feeling. The sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the +orator, work to the same end, with different materials. The painter +expresses through form and color and relation; the sculptor through +form and relation. The poet also paints and chisels—his words give +form, relation and color. His statues and his paintings do not +crumble, neither do they fade, nor will they as long as language +endures. The composer touches the passions, produces the very states +of feeling produced by the painter and sculptor, the poet and orator. +In all these there must be rhythm—that is to say, proportion—that is +to say, harmony, melody. +</P> + +<P> +So that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who +gives new meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary things +of life. He must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the +experiences of the people. +</P> + +<P> +The poetic is not the exceptional. A perfect poem is like a perfect +day. It has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. It must +not appear to be the result of great labor. We feel, in spite of +ourselves, that man does best that which he does easiest. +</P> + +<P> +The great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but of +the best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the +ideals of his race. The sublimer he is, the simpler he is. The +thoughts of the people must be clad in the garments of feeling—the +words must be known, apt, familiar. The bight must be in the thought, +in the sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +In the olden time they used to have May day parties, and the prettiest +child was crowned Queen of May. Imagine an old blacksmith and his wife +looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses. +They would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have +so beautiful a child. It is thus that the poet clothes the +intellectual children or ideals of the people. They must not be gemmed +and garlanded beyond the recognition of their parents. Out from all +the flowers and beauty must look the eyes of the child they know. +</P> + +<P> +We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly +militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the +dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the +imagination for wonders—there are millions of miracles under our feet. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of +life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for +men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy +that they can comprehend. +</P> + +<P> +The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and +impossible—he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and +in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is +nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they +hear the solemn sound of the distant bell—two peasants, who have +nothing to be thankful for—nothing but weariness and want, nothing but +the crusts that they soften with their tears—nothing. And yet as you +look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be +thankful for—that they have life, love, and hope—and so the distant +bell makes music in their simple hearts. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +IX. +</P> + +<P> +The attitude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood. +Towards all forms of worship, towards all creeds, he has maintained the +attitude of absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has +given her last message to man. He does not believe that all has been +ascertained. He denies that any sect has written down the entire +truth. He believes in progress, and, so believing, he says: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine,<BR> +I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still,<BR> +It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +His [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,<BR> +In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent.<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?<BR> +There can be any number of supremes—one does not countervail<BR> + another any more than one eyesight countervails another.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the +serenity of a great and well-poised soul. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,<BR> +Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself....<BR> +In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,<BR> +I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is +the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Not objecting to special revelations—considering a curl of<BR> + smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as<BR> + curious as any revelation.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are +too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this +lack in that which has been written and preached, Whitman says: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Magnifying and applying come I,<BR> +Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters,<BR> +Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,<BR> +Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson,<BR> +Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,<BR> +In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved,<BR> +With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and every idol and image,<BR> +Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends +his hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is +wrinkled and old and has a long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy +has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks—on +stupidity—and fear. Neither does he reject or accept the new because +it is new. He wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows +just who and what they are. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +X. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +PHILOSOPHY. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman is a philosopher. +</P> + +<P> +The more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has +traveled intellectually, the less certain he is. Only the very +ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the +great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the +universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why +and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special +providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that +happens in the universe happens in reference to him. +</P> + +<P> +A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one +day, that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was +heard to remark: "Who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our +home?" +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother +endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to +fathom the mystery of being; and he said: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift,<BR> +A few sands and dead leaves to gather,<BR> +Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><BR> +Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon<BR> + me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am,<BR> +But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands<BR> + yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd,<BR> +Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows,<BR> +With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written,<BR> +Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath....<BR> +I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single<BR> + object, and that no man ever can.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +There is in our language no profounder poem than the one entitled +"Elemental Drifts." +</P> + +<P> +The effort to find the origin has ever been, and will forever be, +fruitless. Those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a +man looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick +enough he could grasp the image that he sees behind the glass. +</P> + +<P> +The latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows: +</P> + +<P> +"To me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a +mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape +and life here somehow giving an important, perhaps the main, outline to +something further. Somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands +behind it, is inside of all facts, and the concrete and material, and +the worldly affairs of life and sense. That is the purport and meaning +behind all the other meanings of LEAVES OF GRASS." +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the +grasp of the human mind. We can see a certain distance; beyond that, +everything is indistinct; and beyond the indistinct is the unseen. In +the presence of these mysteries—and everything is a mystery so far as +origin, destiny, and nature are concerned—the intelligent, honest man +is compelled to say, "I do not know." +</P> + +<P> +In the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever—and +from the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light—a few +momentary sparks. +</P> + +<P> +Some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything +is matter; and again, others have maintained that a part is matter and +a part is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others +that matter was first and spirit after; and others that matter and +spirit have existed together. +</P> + +<P> +But none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or +what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter. +</P> + +<P> +The materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; +and the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling. +These spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, +matter is quite a mystery. You take in your hand a little earth—a +little dust. Do you know what it is? In this dust you put a seed; the +rain falls upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts +into blossom; it produces fruit. +</P> + +<P> +What is this dust—this womb? Do you understand it? Is there anything +in the wide universe more wonderful than this? +</P> + +<P> +Take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible +particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate its every part for +days, and it remains the citadel of a secret—an impregnable fortress. +Bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in serried +ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts and +arms of thought and force. The citadel does not fall. Over the +battlements floats the flag, and the victorious secret smiles at the +baffled hosts. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the +limit—the end of the road traveled by the human race. He knows that +every victory over nature is but the preparation for another battle. +This truth was in his mind when he said: "Understand me well; it is +provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, +no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle +necessary." +</P> + +<P> +This is the generalization of all history. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +XI. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +THE TWO POEMS. +</P> + +<P> +There are two of these poems to which I have time to call special +attention. The first is entitled, "A Word Out of the Sea." +</P> + +<P> +The boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and +fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of +briers and blackberries—from the memories of birds—from the thousand +responses of his heart—goes back to the sea and his childhood, and +sings a reminiscence. +</P> + +<P> +Two guests from Alabama—two birds—build their nest, and there were +four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for +joy: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Shine! shine! shine!<BR> +Pour down your warmth, great sun!<BR> +While we bask, we two together.<BR> +Two together!<BR> +Winds blow south, or winds blow north,<BR> +Day come white, or night come black,<BR> +Home, or rivers and mountains from home,<BR> +Singing all time, minding no time,<BR> +While we two keep together.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +In a little while one of the birds is missed and never appeared again, +and all through the summer the mate, the solitary guest, was singing of +the lost: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Blow! blow! blow!<BR> +Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;<BR> +I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And the boy that night, blending himself with the shadows, with bare +feet, went down to the sea, where the white arms out in the breakers +were tirelessly tossing; listening to the songs and translating the +notes. +</P> + +<P> +And the singing bird called loud and high for the mate, wondering what +the dusky spot was in the brown and yellow, seeing the mate whichever +way he looked, piercing the woods and the earth with his song, hoping +that the mate might hear his cry; stopping that he might not lose her +answer; waiting and then crying again: "Here I am! And this gentle +call is for you. Do not be deceived by the whistle of the wind; those +are the shadows;" and at last crying: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!<BR> +In the air, in the woods, over fields,<BR> +Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!<BR> +But my mate no more, no more with me!<BR> +We two together no more.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And then the boy, understanding the song that had awakened in his +breast a thousand songs clearer and louder and more sorrowful than the +bird's, knowing that the cry of unsatisfied love would never again be +absent from him; thinking then of the destiny of all, and asking of the +sea the final word, and the sea answering, delaying not and hurrying +not, spoke the low delicious word "Death!" "ever Death!" +</P> + +<P> +The next poem, one that will live as long as our language, entitled: +"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," is on the death of Lincoln, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +One who reads this will never forget the odor of the lilac, "the +lustrous western star" and "the grey-brown bird singing in the pines +and cedars." +</P> + +<P> +In this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the +atmosphere and climate in harmony with every event. +</P> + +<P> +Never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and +night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of +inlooped flags, the processions long and winding, the flambeaus of +night, the torches' flames, the silent sea of faces, the unbared heads, +the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, the dirges, the +shuddering organs, the tolling bells—and the sprig of lilac. +</P> + +<P> +And then for a moment they will hear the grey-brown bird singing in the +cedars, bashful and tender, while the lustrous star lingers in the +West, and they will remember the pictures hung on the chamber walls to +adorn the burial house—pictures of spring and farms and homes, and the +grey smoke lucid and bright, and the floods of yellow gold—of the +gorgeous indolent sinking sun—the sweet herbage under foot—the green +leaves of the trees prolific—the breast of the river with the +wind-dapple here and there, and the varied and ample land—and the most +excellent sun so calm and haughty—the violet and purple morn with +just-felt breezes—the gentle soft born measureless light—the miracle +spreading, bathing all—the fulfill'd noon—the coming eve delicious +and the welcome night and the stars. +</P> + +<P> +And then again they will hear the song of the grey-brown bird in the +limitless dusk amid the cedars and pines. Again they will remember the +star, and again the odor of the lilac. +</P> + +<P> +But most of all, the song of the bird translated and becoming the chant +for death: +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +A CHANT FOR DEATH.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Come lovely and soothing death,<BR> +Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,<BR> +In the day, in the night, to all, to each,<BR> +Sooner or later delicate death.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Prais'd be the fathomless universe,<BR> +For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,<BR> +And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!<BR> +For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,<BR> +Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?<BR> +Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,<BR> +I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Approach strong deliveress,<BR> +When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,<BR> +Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,<BR> +Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +From me to thee glad serenades,<BR> +Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,<BR> +And the sights of the open landscape and the high spread sky are fitting,<BR> +And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +The night in silence under many a star,<BR> +The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,<BR> +And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death,<BR> +And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,<BR> +Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,<BR> +Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,<BR> +I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This poem, in memory of "the sweetest, wisest soul of all our days and +lands," and for whose sake lilac and star and bird entwined, will last +as long as the memory of Lincoln. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +XII. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +OLD AGE. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman is not only the poet of childhood, of youth, of manhood, +but, above all, of old age. He has not been soured by slander or +petrified by prejudice; neither calumny nor flattery has made him +revengeful or arrogant. Now sitting by the fireside, in the winter of +life, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +His jocund heart still beating in his breast,<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +he is just as brave and calm and kind as in his manhood's proudest +days, when roses blossomed in his cheeks. He has taken life's seven +steps. Now, as the gamester might say, "on velvet." He is enjoying +"old age expanded, broad, with the haughty breadth of the universe; old +age, flowing free, with the delicious near-by freedom of death; old +age, superbly rising, welcoming the ineffable aggregation of dying +days." +</P> + +<P> +He is taking the "loftiest look at last," and before he goes he utters +thanks: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air—for life, mere life,<BR> +For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother<BR> + dear you, father—you, brothers, sisters, friends.)<BR> +For all my days—not those of peace alone the days of war the same,<BR> +For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands,<BR> +For shelter, wine and meat—for sweet appreciation,<BR> +(You distant, dim unknown—or young or old—countless, unspecified, readers belov'd,<BR> +We never met, and ne'er shall meet—and yet our souls embrace, long, close and long.)<BR> +For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books—for colors, forms,<BR> +For all the brave strong men—devoted, hardy men—who've<BR> + forward sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands,<BR> +For braver, stronger, more devoted men (a special laurel ere<BR> + I go, to life's war's chosen ones,<BR> +The cannoneers of song and thought—the great artillerists—the<BR> + foremost leaders, captains of the soul).<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +It is a great thing to preach philosophy—far greater to live it. The +highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a smile, and greets it +as though it were desired. +</P> + +<P> +To be satisfied: This is wealth—success. +</P> + +<P> +The real philosopher knows that everything has happened that could have +happened—consequently he accepts. He is glad that he has lived—glad +that he has had his moment on the stage. In this spirit Whitman has +accepted life. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +I shall go forth,<BR> +I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither or how long,<BR> +Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my voice will suddenly cease.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?<BR> +Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?—and yet it is enough, O soul;<BR> +O soul, we have positively appear'd—that is enough.<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Yes, Walt Whitman has appeared. He has his place upon the stage. The +drama is not ended. His voice is still heard. He is the Poet of +Democracy—of all people. He is the poet of the body and soul. He has +sounded the note of Individuality. He has given the pass-word +primeval. He is the Poet of Humanity—of Intellectual Hospitality. He +has voiced the aspirations of America—and, above all, he is the poet +of Love and Death. +</P> + +<P> +How grandly, how bravely he has given his thought, and how superb is +his farewell—his leave-taking: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +After the supper and talk—after the day is done,<BR> +As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,<BR> +Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,<BR> +(So hard for his hand to release those hands—no more will they meet,<BR> +No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,<BR> +A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)<BR> +Shunning, postponing severance seeking to ward off the last word ever so little,<BR> +E'en at the exit-door turning—charges superfluous calling<BR> + back—e'en as he descends the steps,<BR> +Something to eke out a minute additional—shadows of nightfall deepening,<BR> +Farewells, messages lessening—dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form,<BR> +Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness loth, O so loth to depart!<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +And is this all? Will the forthgoer be lost, and forever? Is death +the end? Over the grave bends Love sobbing, and by her side stands +Hope and whispers: +</P> + +<P> +We shall meet again. Before all life is death, and after all death is +life. The falling leaf, touched with the hectic flush, that testifies +of autumn's death, is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring. +</P> + +<P> +Walt Whitman has dreamed great dreams, told great truths and uttered +sublime thoughts. He has held aloft the torch and bravely led the way. +</P> + +<P> +As you read the marvelous book, or the person, called "Leaves of +Grass," you feel the freedom of the antique world; you hear the voices +of the morning, of the first great singers—voices elemental as those +of sea and storm. The horizon enlarges, the heavens grow ample, +limitations are forgotten—the realization of the will, the +accomplishment of the ideal, seem to be within your power. +Obstructions become petty and disappear. The chains and bars are +broken, and the distinctions of caste are lost. The soul is in the +open air, under the blue and stars—the flag of Nature. Creeds, +theories and philosophies ask to be examined, contradicted, +reconstructed. Prejudices disappear, superstitions vanish and custom +abdicates. The sacred places become highways, duties and desires clasp +hands and become comrades and friends. Authority drops the scepter, +the priest the miter, and the purple falls from kings. The inanimate +becomes articulate, the meanest and humblest things utter speech and +the dumb and voiceless burst into song. A feeling of independence +takes possession of the soul, the body expands, the blood flows full +and free, superiors vanish, flattery is a lost art, and life becomes +rich, royal, and superb. The world becomes a personal possession, and +the oceans, the continents, and constellations belong to you. You are +in the center, everything radiates from you, and in your veins beats +and throbs the pulse of all life. You become a rover, careless and +free. You wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. +You feel the silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the +intertwined and over arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds +and woods. You are borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear +the rush and roar of cataracts as they fall beneath the seven-hued +arch, and watch the eagles as they circling soar. You traverse gorges +dark and dim, and climb the scarred and threatening cliffs. You stand +in orchards where the blossoms fall like snow, where the birds nest and +sing, and painted moths make aimless journeys through the happy air. +You live the lives of those who till the earth, and walk amid the +perfumed fields, hear the reapers' song, and feel the breadth and scope +of earth and sky. You are in the great cities, in the midst of +multitudes, of the endless processions. You are on the wide +plains—the prairies—with hunter and trapper, with savage and pioneer, +and you feel the soft grass yielding under your feet. You sail in many +ships, and breathe the free air of the sea. You travel many roads, and +countless paths. You visit palaces and prisons, hospitals and courts; +you pity kings and convicts, and your sympathy goes out to all the +suffering and insane, the oppressed and enslaved, and even to the +infamous. You hear the din of labor, all sounds of factory, field, and +forest, of all tools, instruments and machines. You become familiar +with men and women of all employments, trades and professions—with +birth and burial, with wedding feast and funeral chant. You see the +cloud and flame of war, and you enjoy the ineffable perfect days of +peace. In this one book, in these wondrous "Leaves of Grass," you find +hints and suggestions, touches and fragments, of all there is of life, +that lies between the babe, whose rounded cheeks dimple beneath his +mother's laughing, loving eyes, and the old man, snow-crowned, who, +with a smile, extends his hand to death. +</P> + +<P> +We have met to-night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of +"Leaves of Grass." +</P> + +<BR><BR> + +<A NAME="img-077"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-077.jpg" ALT="Chapter XII tailpiece" BORDER=""> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +ADDRESS AT THE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t1"> +Funeral of Walt Whitman +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +BY ROBERT O. INGERSOLL, +</P> + +<P CLASS="t4"> +At Harleigh, Camden, New Jersey, March 30, 1892. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Again, we, in the mystery of Life, are brought face to face with the +mystery of Death. A great man, a great American, the most eminent +citizen of this Republic, lies dead before us, and we have met to pay +tribute to his greatness and his worth. +</P> + +<P> +I know he needs no words of mine. His fame is secure. He laid the +foundations of it deep in the human heart and brain. He was, above all +I have known, the poet of humanity, of sympathy. He was so great that +he rose above the greatest that he met without arrogance, and so great +that he stooped to the lowest without conscious condescension. He +never claimed to be lower or greater than any of the sons of men. +</P> + +<P> +He came into our generation a free, untrammeled spirit, with sympathy +for all. His arm was beneath the form of the sick. He sympathized +with the imprisoned and despised, and even on the brow of crime he was +great enough to place the kiss of human sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +One of the greatest lines in our literature is his, and the line is +great enough to do honor to the greatest genius that has ever lived. +He said, speaking of an outcast: "Not until the sun excludes you will I +exclude you." +</P> + +<P> +His charity was as wide as the sky, and wherever there was human +suffering, human misfortune, the sympathy of Whitman bent above it as +the firmament bends above the earth. +</P> + +<P> +He was built on a broad and splendid plan—ample, without appearing to +have limitations—passing easily for a brother of mountains and seas +and constellations; caring nothing for the little maps and charts with +which timid pilots hug the shore, but giving himself freely with the +recklessness of genius to winds and waves and tides; caring for nothing +so long as the stars were above him. He walked among men, among +writers, among verbal varnishers and veneerers, among literary +milliners and tailors, with the unconscious majesty of an antique god. +</P> + +<P> +He was the poet of that divine democracy which gives equal rights to +all the sons and daughters of men. He uttered the great American +voice; uttered a song worthy of the great Republic. No man has ever +said more for the rights of humanity, more in favor of real democracy, +of real justice. He neither scorned nor cringed; was neither tyrant +nor slave. He asked only to stand the equal of his fellows beneath the +great flag of nature, the blue and stars. +</P> + +<P> +He was the poet of life. It was a joy simply to breathe. He loved the +clouds; he enjoyed the breath of morning, the twilight, the wind, the +winding streams. He loved to look at the sea when the waves burst into +the whitecaps of joy. He loved the fields, the hills; he was +acquainted with the trees, with birds, with all the beautiful objects +of the earth. He not only saw these objects, but understood their +meaning, and he used them that he might exhibit his heart to his +fellow-men. +</P> + +<P> +He was the poet of Love. He was not ashamed of that divine passion +that has built every home; that divine passion that has painted every +picture and given us every real work of art; that divine passion that +has made the world worth living in and has given some value to human +life. +</P> + +<P> +He was the poet of the natural, and taught men not to be ashamed of +that which is natural. He was not only the poet of democracy, not only +the poet of the great Republic, but he was the poet of the human race. +He was not confined to the limits of this country, but his sympathy +went out over the seas to all the nations of the earth. +</P> + +<P> +He stretched out his hands and felt himself the equal of all kings and +of all princes, and the brother of all men, no matter how high, no +matter how low. +</P> + +<P> +He has uttered more supreme words than any writer of our century, +possibly of almost any other. He was, above all things, a man, and +above genius, above all the snow-capped peaks of intelligence, above +all art, rises the true man. +</P> + +<P> +He was the poet of Death. He accepted all life and all death, and he +justified all. He had the courage to meet all, and was great enough +and splendid enough to harmonize all and to accept all there is as a +divine melody. +</P> + +<P> +You know better than I what his life has been, but let me say one +thing: Knowing as he did, what others can know and what they can not, +he accepted and absorbed all theories, all creeds, all religions, and +believed in none. His philosophy was a sky that embraced all clouds +and accounted for all clouds. He had a philosophy and a religion of +his own, broader, as he believed—and as I believe—than others. He +accepted all, he understood all, and he was above all. +</P> + +<P> +He was absolutely true to himself. He had frankness and courage, and +he was as candid as light. He was willing that all the sons of men +should be absolutely acquainted with his heart and brain. He had +nothing to conceal. Frank, candid, pure, serene, noble, and yet for +years he was maligned and slandered, simply because he had the candor +of nature. He will be understood yet, and that for which he was +condemned—his frankness, his candor—will add to the glory and +greatness of his fame. +</P> + +<P> +He wrote a liturgy for mankind; he wrote a great and splendid psalm of +life, and he gave to us the gospel of humanity—the greatest gospel +that can be preached. +</P> + +<P> +He was not afraid to live; not afraid to die. For many years he and +Death lived near neighbors. He was always willing and ready to meet +and greet this king called Death, and for many months he sat in the +deepening twilight waiting for the night; waiting for the light. +</P> + +<P> +He never lost his hope. When the mists filled the valleys, he looked +upon the mountain tops, and when the mountains in darkness disappeared, +fixed his gaze upon the stars. +</P> + +<P> +In his brain were the blessed memories of the day and in his heart were +mingled the dawn and dusk of life. +</P> + +<P> +He was not afraid; he was cheerful every moment. The laughing nymphs +of day did not desert him. They remained that they might clasp the +hands and greet with smiles the veiled and silent sisters of the night. +And when they did come, Walt Whitman stretched his hand to them. On +one side were the nymphs of day, and on the other the silent sisters of +the night, and so, hand in hand, between smiles and tears, he reached +his journey's end. +</P> + +<P> +From the frontier of life, from the western wave-kissed shore, he sent +us messages of content and hope, and these messages seem now like +strains of music blown by the "Mystic Trumpeter" from Death's pale +realm. +</P> + +<P> +To-day we give back to Mother Nature, to her clasp and kiss, one of the +bravest, sweetest souls that ever lived in human clay. +</P> + +<P> +Charitable as the air and generous as Nature, he was negligent of all +except to do and say what he believed he should do and should say. +</P> + +<P> +And I to-day thank him, not only for you but for myself, for all the +brave words he has uttered. I thank him for all the great and splendid +words he has said in favor of liberty, in favor of man and woman, in +favor of motherhood, in favor of fathers, in favor of children, and I +thank him for the brave words that he has said of death. +</P> + +<P> +He has lived, he has died, and death is less terrible than it was +before. Thousands and millions will walk down into the "dark valley of +the shadow" holding Walt Whitman by the hand. Long after we are dead +the brave words he has spoken will sound like trumpets to the dying. +</P> + +<P> +And so I lay this little wreath upon this great man's tomb. I loved +him living, and I love him still. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<HR> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> + +<<P CLASS="t3"> +A New Book About the Bible. +<BR> +The Best One of All....... +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t1"> +THE BIBLE +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +By JOHN E. REMSBURG. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +Large 12mo. 500 pages. Cloth, $1.25 net. Postpaid. +</P> + +<P> +Eleven Chapters on the Authenticity of the Bible—Thirteen on the +Credibility of the Bible—Ten on the Morality of the Bible—With an +Appendix of Unanswerable Arguments Against the Divine Origin and in +Favor of the Human Origin of the Bible. +</P> + +<P> +Twenty-six pages of Index, enabling the reader to refer in an instant +to any Authority quoted or Argument used. +</P> + +<P> +The titles of the chapters, in detail, are: Sacred Books of the World, +The Christian Bible, Formation of the Canoa, Different Versions of the +Bible, Authorship and Dates, The Pentateuch, The Prophets, The +Hagiographa, The Four Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, and Revelation; +Pauline Epistles, Textual Errors, Two Cosmogonies of Genesis, The +Patriarchal Age, The Jewish Kings, Inspired Numbers, When Did +Jehoshaphat Die?, Harmony of the Gospels, Paul and the Apostles, The +Bible and History, The Bible and Science, Prophecies, Miracles, The +Bible God, The Bible Not a Moral Guide, Lying, Cheating, Stealing, +Murder, War, Human Sacrifices, Cannibalism, Witchcraft, Slavery, +Polygamy, Adultery, Obscenity, Intemperance, Vagrancy, Ignorance, +Injustice to women, Unkindness to Children, Cruelty to Animals, +Tyranny, Intolerance, Conclusion, Appendix. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +*** <I>The book makes some five hundred Pages and is printed handsomely +on heavy paper, with wide margins. Price, $1.25 net</I> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., +<BR> +28 Lafayette Place, New York, N. Y. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="t1"> +New Testament Stories +<BR> +Comically Illustrated +</P> + +<P CLASS="t2"> +NEARLY 400 PAGES +<BR> +A PAGE OF TEXT TO EACH PICTURE +<BR> +ABOUT 200 PICTURES +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +These Pictures are the Illustrations which appeared in The Truth Seeker +and were highly commended for their wit and point. The Text is in +chief part by George E. Macdonald, most favorably known to readers of +The Truth Seeker. The Cover is from an original design by Ryan Walker, +one of the best cartoonists in the whole country. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +<I>Cloth covers, design in white and tint, $1.50.<BR> +Board covers, illuminated, $1.</I> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The Book covers the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation, and the +principal incidents in the careers of the "Son of Man" and his "army" +are illustrated in a humorous manner, accompanied with a page of text +still more effective. Mr. George E. Macdonald possesses the delicate +touch of Mark Twain and the quaint conceptions of Bill Nye, with a +style all his own. A perusal of this book cannot fail to destroy the +superstitious regard for the New Testament now held by deceived +Christians. The absurdity of the events narrated in the Gospels, Acts, +and Epistles is made apparent; and while there is nothing in the work +to offend by its "blasphemy," there is a great deal which will convince +its readers that the religion of the New Testament is equally +mythological with the history of the Old Testament. The book combines +amusement with instruction, like the "moral pocket handkerchiefs" Mrs. +Weller's church sent to the heathen. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +Cloth covers, $1.50; board covers, $1.00. +</P> + +<P CLASS="t3"> +Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., +<BR> +28 Lafayette Place, New York, N. Y. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Walt Whitman, by Robert G. 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Ingersoll + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Walt Whitman + An Address + +Author: Robert G. Ingersoll + +Release Date: September 24, 2011 [EBook #34417] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WALT WHITMAN *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: WALT WHITMAN] + + + + + + +WALT WHITMAN. + + +AN ADDRESS + +BY + +ROBERT G. INGERSOLL + + +"LIBERTY IN LITERATURE." + + +Delivered in Philadelphia, Oct. 21, 1890. Also Funeral + Address Delivered at Harleigh, Camden, N. J., + March 30, 1892. + + +WITH PORTRAIT OF WHITMAN. + + +AUTHORIZED EDITION. + + +New York; + +THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY, + +28 Lafayette Place. + + + + +Copyrighted, 1890, + +BY + +THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY. + + + + +TESTIMONIAL + +TO + +WALT WHITMAN. + + +Of all the placid hours in his peaceful life, those that Walt Whitman +spent on the stage of Horticultural Hall last night must have been +among the most gratifying, says the Philadelphia Press of October 22, +1890. To a testimonial, intended to cheer his declining years, not +only in a complimentary sense, came some eighteen hundred or more +people to listen to a tribute to the aged poet by Col. Robert G. +Ingersoll, such as seldom falls to the lot of living man to hear about +himself. + +On the stage sat many admirers of the venerable torch-bearer of modern +poetic thought, as Colonel Ingersoll described him, young and old, men +and women. There were white beards, but none were so white as that of +the author of "Leaves of Grass." He sat calm and sedate in his easy +wheeled chair, with his usual garb of gray, with his cloudy white hair +falling over his white, turned-down collar that must have been three +inches wide. No burst of eloquence from the orator's lips disturbed +that equanimity; no tribute of applause moved him from his habitual +calm. + +And when the lecturer, having concluded, said, "We have met to-night to +honor ourselves by honoring the author of 'Leaves of Grass,'" and the +audience started to leave the hall, the man they had honored reached +forward with his cane and attracted Colonel Ingersoll's attention. + +"Do not leave yet," said Colonel Ingersoll, "Mr. Whitman has a word to +say." + +This is what he said, and no more characteristic thing ever fell from +the poet's lips or flowed from his pen: + +"After all, my friends, the main factors being the curious testimony +called personal presence and face to face meeting, I have come here to +be among you and show myself, and thank you with my living voice for +coming, and Robert Ingersoll for speaking. And so with such brief +testimony of showing myself, and such good will and gratitude, I bid +you hail and farewell." + + + + +THE ADDRESS. + + +_Let us Put Wreaths on the Brows of the Living._ + + +I. + +In the year 1855 the American people knew but little of books. Their +ideals, their models, were English. Young and Pollok, Addison and +Watts were regarded as great poets. Some of the more reckless read +Thomson's "Seasons" and the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott. A +few, not quite orthodox, delighted in the mechanical monotony of Pope, +and the really wicked--those lost to all religious shame--were +worshipers of Shakespeare. The really orthodox Protestant, untroubled +by doubts, considered Milton the greatest poet of them all. Byron and +Shelley were hardly respectable--not to be read by young persons. It +was admitted on all hands that Burns was a child of nature of whom his +mother was ashamed and proud. + +In the blessed year aforesaid, candor, free and sincere speech, were +under the ban. Creeds at that time were entrenched behind statutes, +prejudice, custom, ignorance, stupidity, Puritanism and slavery; that +is to say, slavery of mind and body. + +Of course it always has been, and forever will be, impossible for +slavery, or any kind or form of injustice, to produce a great poet. +There are hundreds of verse makers and writers on the side of +wrong--enemies of progress--but they are not poets, they are not men of +genius. + +At this time a young man--he to whom this testimonial is given--he upon +whose head have fallen the snows of more than seventy winters--this +man, born within the sound of the sea, gave to the world a book, +"Leaves of Grass." This book was, and is, the true transcript of a +soul. The man is unmasked. No drapery of hypocrisy, no pretense, no +fear. The book was as original in form as in thought. All customs +were forgotten or disregarded, all rules broken--nothing mechanical--no +imitation--spontaneous, running and winding like a river, multitudinous +in its thoughts as the waves of the sea--nothing mathematical or +measured. In everything a touch of chaos--lacking what is called form +as clouds lack form, but not lacking the splendor of sunrise or the +glory of sunset. It was a marvelous collection and aggregation of +fragments, hints, suggestions, memories, and prophecies, weeds and +flowers, clouds and clods, sights and sounds, emotions and passions, +waves, shadows and constellations. + +His book was received by many with disdain, with horror, with +indignation and protest--by the few as a marvelous, almost miraculous, +message to the world--full of thought, philosophy, poetry and music. + +In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. A great soul +appears and fills the world with new and marvelous harmonies. In his +words is the old Promethean flame. The heart of nature beats and +throbs in his line. The respectable prudes and pedagogues sound the +alarm, and cry, or rather screech: "Is this a book for a young person?" + +A poem true to life as a Greek statue--candid as nature--fills these +barren souls with fear. + +They forget that drapery about the perfect was suggested by immodesty. + +The provincial prudes, and others of like mold, pretend that love is a +duty rather than a passion--a kind of self-denial--not an overmastering +joy. They preach the gospel of pretense and pantalettes. In the +presence of sincerity, of truth, they cast down their eyes and endeavor +to feel immodest. To them, the most beautiful thing is hypocrisy +adorned with a blush. + +They have no idea of an honest, pure passion, glorying in its +strength--intense, intoxicated with the beautiful, giving even to +inanimate things pulse and motion, and that transfigures, ennobles, and +idealizes the object of its adoration. + +They do not walk the streets of the city of life--they explore the +sewers; they stand in the gutters and cry "Unclean!" They pretend that +beauty is a snare; that love is a Delilah; that the highway of joy is +the broad road, lined with flowers and filled with perfume, leading to +the city of eternal sorrow. + +Since the year 1855 the American people have developed; they are +somewhat acquainted with the literature of the world. They have +witnessed the most tremendous of revolutions, not only upon the fields +of battle, but in the world of thought. The American citizen has +concluded that it is hardly worth while being a sovereign unless he has +the right to think for himself. + +And now, from this hight, with the vantage-ground of to-day, I propose +to examine this book and to state, in a general way, what Walt Whitman +has done, what he has accomplished, and the place he has won in the +world of thought. + + + + +II. + +THE RELIGION OF THE BODY. + +Walt Whitman stood, when he published his book, where all stand +to-night--on the perpetually moving line where history ends and +prophecy begins. He was full of life to the very tips of his +fingers--brave, eager, candid, joyous with health. He was acquainted +with the past. He knew something of song and story, of philosophy and +art--much of the heroic dead, of brave suffering, of the thoughts of +men, the habits of the people--rich as well as poor--familiar with +labor, a friend of wind and wave, touched by love and +friendship--liking the open road, enjoying the fields and paths, the +crags--friend of the forest--feeling that he was free--neither master +nor slave--willing that all should know his thoughts--open as the sky, +candid as nature--and he gave his thoughts, his dreams, his +conclusions, his hopes, and his mental portrait to his fellow-men. + +Walt Whitman announced the gospel of the body. He confronted the +people. He denied the depravity of man. He insisted that love is not +a crime; that men and women should be proudly natural; that they need +not grovel on the earth and cover their faces for shame. He taught the +dignity and glory of the father and mother; the sacredness of maternity. + +Maternity, tender and pure as the tear of pity, holy as suffering--the +crown, the flower, the ecstasy of love. + +People had been taught from bibles and from creeds that maternity was a +kind of crime; that the woman should be purified by some ceremony in +some temple built in honor of some god. This barbarism was attacked in +"Leaves of Grass." + +The glory of simple life was sung; a declaration of independence was +made for each and all. + +And yet this appeal to manhood and to womanhood was misunderstood. It +was denounced simply because it was in harmony with the great trend of +nature. To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy. + +It was not the fashion for people to speak or write their thoughts. We +were flooded with the literature of hypocrisy. The writers did not +faithfully describe the worlds in which they lived. They endeavored to +make a fashionable world. They pretended that the cottage or the hut +in which they dwelt was a palace, and they called the little area in +which they threw their slops their domain, their realm, their empire. +They were ashamed of the real, of what their world actually was. They +imitated; that is to say, they told lies, and these lies filled the +literature of most lands. + +Walt Whitman defended the sacredness of love, the purity of +passion--the passion that builds every home and fills the world with +art and song. + +They cried out: "He is a defender of passion--he is a libertine! He +lives in the mire. He lacks spirituality!" + +Whoever differs with the multitude, especially with a led +multitude--that is to say, with a multitude of taggers--will find out +from their leaders that he has committed an unpardonable sin. It is a +crime to travel a road of your own, especially if you put up +guide-boards for the information of others. + +Many, many centuries ago Epicurus, the greatest man of his century, and +of many centuries before and after, said: "Happiness is the only good; +happiness is the supreme end." This man was temperate, frugal, +generous, noble--and yet through all these years he has been denounced +by the hypocrites of the world as a mere eater and drinker. + +It was said that Whitman had exaggerated the importance of love--that +he had made too much of this passion. Let me say that no poet--not +excepting Shakespeare--has had imagination enough to exaggerate the +importance of human love--a passion that contains all hights and all +depths--ample as space, with a sky in which glitter all constellations, +and that has within it all storms, all lightnings, all wrecks and +ruins, all griefs, all sorrows, all shadows, and all the joy and +sunshine of which the heart and brain are capable. + +No writer must be measured by a word or paragraph. He is to be +measured by his work--by the tendency, not of one line, but by the +tendency of all. + +Which way does the great stream tend? Is it for good or evil? Are the +motives high and noble, or low and infamous? + +We cannot measure Shakespeare by a few lines, neither can we measure +the Bible by a few chapters, nor "Leaves of Grass" by a few paragraphs. +In each there are many things that I neither approve nor believe--but +in all books you will find a mingling of wisdom and foolishness, of +prophecies and mistakes--in other words, among the excellencies there +will be defects. The mine is not all gold, or all silver, or all +diamonds--there are baser metals. The trees of the forest are not all +of one size. On some of the highest there are dead and useless limbs, +and there may be growing beneath the bushes, weeds, and now and then a +poisonous vine. + +If I were to edit the great books of the world, I might leave out some +lines and I might leave out the best. I have no right to make of my +brain a sieve and say that only that which passes through belongs to +the rest of the human race. I claim the right to choose. I give that +right to all. + +Walt Whitman had the courage to express his thought--the candor to tell +the truth. And here let me say it gives me joy--a kind of perfect +satisfaction--to look above the bigoted bats, the satisfied owls and +wrens and chickadees, and see the great eagle poised, circling higher +and higher, unconscious of their existence. And it gives me joy, a +kind of perfect satisfaction, to look above the petty passions and +jealousies of small and respectable people--above the considerations of +place and power and reputation, and see a brave, intrepid man. + +It must be remembered that the American people had separated from the +Old World--that we had declared not only the independence of colonies, +but the independence of the individual. We had done more--we had +declared that the state could no longer be ruled by the Church, and +that the Church could not be ruled by the state, and that the +individual could not be ruled by the Church. These declarations were +in danger of being forgotten. We needed a new voice, sonorous, loud +and clear, a new poet for America for the new epoch, somebody to chant +the morning song of the new day. + +The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind, fascinates and +instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please +the public. They flatter the stupid and pander to the prejudice of +their readers. They write for the market--making books as other +mechanics make shoes. They have no message--they bear no torch--they +are simply the slaves of customers. The books they manufacture are +handled by "the trade;" they are regarded as harmless. The pulpit does +not object; the young person can read the monotonous pages without a +blush--or a thought. On the title pages of these books you will find +the imprint of the great publishers--on the rest of the pages, nothing. +These books might be prescribed for insomnia. + + + + +III. + +Men of talent, men of business, touch life upon few sides. They travel +but the beaten path. The creative spirit is not in them. They regard +with suspicion a poet who touches life on every side. They have little +confidence in that divine thing called sympathy, and they do not and +cannot understand the man who enters into the hopes, the aims, and the +feelings of all others. + +In all genius there is the touch of chaos--a little of the vagabond; +and the successful tradesman, the man who buys and sells, or manages a +bank, does not care to deal with a person who has only poems for +collaterals--they have a little fear of such people, and regard them as +the awkward countryman does a sleight-of-hand performer. + +In every age in which books have been produced the governing class, the +respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius. If what +are known as the best people could have had their way, if the pulpit +had been consulted--the provincial moralists--the works of Shakespeare +would have been suppressed. Not a line would have reached our time. +And the same may be said of every dramatist of his age. + +If the Scotch Kirk could have decided, nothing would have been known of +Robert Burns. If the good people, the orthodox, could have had their +say, not one line of Voltaire would now be known. All the plates of +the French Encyclopedia would have been destroyed with the thousands +that were destroyed. Nothing would have been known of D'Alembert, +Grimm, Diderot, or any of the Titans who warred against the thrones and +altars and laid the foundation of modern literature not only, but what +is of far greater moment, universal education. + +It is not too much to say that every book now held in high esteem would +have been destroyed, if those in authority could have had their will. +Every book of modern times, that has a real value, that has enlarged +the intellectual horizon of mankind, that has developed the brain, that +has furnished real food for thought, can be found in the Index +Expurgatorius of the Papacy, and nearly every one has been commended to +the free minds of men by the denunciations of Protestants. + +If the guardians of society, the protectors of "young persons," could +have had their way, we should have known nothing of Byron or Shelley. +The voices that thrill the world would now be silent. If authority +could have had its way, the world would have been as ignorant now as it +was when our ancestors lived in holes or hung from dead limbs by their +prehensile tails. + +But we are not forced to go very far back. If Shakespeare had been +published for the first time now, those divine plays--greater than +continents and seas, greater even than the constellations of the +midnight sky--would be excluded from the mails by the decision of the +present enlightened postmaster-general. + +The poets have always lived in an ideal world, and that ideal world has +always been far better than the real world. As a consequence, they +have forever roused, not simply the imagination, but the energies--the +enthusiasm of the human race. + +The great poets have been on the side of the oppressed--of the +downtrodden. They have suffered with the imprisoned and the enslaved, +and whenever and wherever man has suffered for the right, wherever the +hero has been stricken down--whether on field or scaffold--some man of +genius has walked by his side, and some poet has given form and +expression, not simply to his deeds, but to his aspirations. + +From the Greek and Roman world we still hear the voices of a few. The +poets, the philosophers, the artists and the orators still speak. +Countless millions have been covered by the waves of oblivion, but the +few who uttered the elemental truths, who had sympathy for the whole +human race, and who were great enough to prophesy a grander day, are as +alive to-night as when they roused, by their bodily presence, by their +living voices, by their works of art, the enthusiasm of their fellow +men. + +Think of the respectable people, of the men of wealth and position, +those who dwelt in mansions, children of success, who went down to the +grave voiceless, and whose names we do not know. Think of the vast +multitudes, the endless processions, that entered the caverns of +eternal night--leaving no thought--no truth as a legacy to mankind! + +The great poets have sympathized with the people. They have uttered in +all ages the human cry. Unbought by gold, unawed by power, they have +lifted high the torch that illuminates the world. + + + + +IV. + +Walt Whitman is in the highest sense a believer in democracy. He knows +that there is but one excuse for government--the preservation of +liberty; to the end that man may be happy. He knows that there is but +one excuse for any institution, secular and religious--the preservation +of liberty; and that there is but one excuse for schools, for universal +education, for the ascertainment of facts, namely, the preservation of +liberty. He resents the arrogance and cruelty of power. He has sworn +never to be tyrant or slave. He has solemnly declared: + + + I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy, + By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their + counterpart of on the same terms. + + +This one declaration covers the entire ground. It is a declaration of +independence, and it is also a declaration of justice, that is to say, +a declaration of the independence of the individual, and a declaration +that all shall be free. The man who has this spirit can truthfully say: + + I have taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown. + I am for those that have never been master'd. + + +There is in Whitman what he calls "The boundless impatience of +restraint"--together with that sense of justice which compelled him to +say, "Neither a servant nor a master am I." + +He was wise enough to know that giving others the same rights that he +claims for himself could not harm him, and he was great enough to say: +"As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess +the same." + +He felt as all should feel, that the liberty of no man is safe unless +the liberty of each is safe. + +There is in our country a little of the old servile spirit, a little of +the bowing and cringing to others. Many Americans do not understand +that the officers of the government are simply the servants of the +people. Nothing is so demoralizing as the worship of place. Whitman +has reminded the people of this country that they are supreme, and he +has said to them: + + The President is there in the White House for you, it is not + you who are here for him, + The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you, not you here for them. + Doctrines, politics and civilization exurge from you, + Sculpture and monuments and any thing inscribed anywhere + are tallied in you. + + +He describes the ideal American citizen--the one who + + Says indifferently and alike "How are you, friend?" to the + President at his levee, + And he says "Good-day, my brother," to Cudge that hoes in + the sugar-field. + + +Long ago, when the politicians were wrong, when the judges were +subservient, when the pulpit was a coward, Walt Whitman shouted: + + Man shall not hold property in man. + The least developed person on earth is just as important and + sacred to himself or herself as the most develop'd person + is to himself or herself. + + +This is the very soul of true democracy. + +Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It +is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It +is both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty. + +Walt Whitman utters the elemental truths and is the poet of democracy. +He is also the poet of individuality. + + + + +V. + +INDIVIDUALITY. + +In order to protect the liberties of a nation, we must protect the +individual. A democracy is a nation of free individuals. The +individuals are not to be sacrificed to the nation. The nation exists +only for the purpose of guarding and protecting the individuality of +men and women. Walt Whitman has told us that: "The whole theory of the +universe is directed unerringly to one single individual--namely to +You." + +And he has also told us that the greatest city--the greatest nation--is +"where the citizen is always the head and ideal." + +And that + + A great city is that which has the greatest men and women, + If it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in + the whole world. + + +By this test maybe the greatest city on the continent to-night is +Camden. + +This poet has asked of us this question: + + What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk + free and own no superior? + + +The man who asks this question has left no impress of his lips in the +dust, and has no dirt upon his knees. + +He was great enough to say: + + The soul has that measureless pride which revolts from every + lesson but its own. + + +He carries the idea of individuality to its utmost hight: + + What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred + ways, but that man or woman is as good as God? + And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself? + + +Glorying in individuality, in the freedom of the soul, he cries out: + + O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! + To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! + To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! + To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns + with perfect nonchalance! + To be indeed a God! + + +And again; + + O the joy of a manly self-hood! + To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant + known or unknown, + To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, + To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye, + To speak with full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest. + To confront with your personality all the other personalities of + the earth. + + +Walt Whitman is willing to stand alone. He is sufficient unto himself, +and he says: + + Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune. + * * * * * + Strong and content I travel the open road. + + +He is one of + + Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and + Governors, as to say "Who are you?" + + +And not only this, but he has the courage to say: "Nothing, not God, is +greater to one than one's self." + +Walt Whitman is the poet of Individuality--the defender of the rights +of each for the sake of all--and his sympathies are as wide as the +world. He is the defender of the whole race. + + + + +VI. + +HUMANITY. + +The great poet is intensely human--infinitely sympathetic--entering +into the joys and griefs of others, bearing their burdens, knowing +their sorrows. Brain without heart is not much; they must act +together. When the respectable people of the North, the rich, the +successful, were willing to carry out the Fugitive Slave law, Walt +Whitman said: + + I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs, + Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen, + I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn'd with + the ooze of my skin, + I fall on the weeds and stones, + The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close, + Taunt my dizzy ears, and beat me violently over the head + with whip-stocks. + Agonies are one of my changes of garments, + I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself + become the wounded person.... + I ... see myself in prison shaped like another man, + And feel the dull unintermitted pain. + + For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch, + It is I let out in the morning and barr'd at night. + + Not a mutineer walks handcuff'd to jail but I am handcuff'd + to him and walk by his side. + * * * * * + Judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a + helpless thing. + + +Of the very worst he had the infinite tenderness to say: "Not until the +sun excludes you will I exclude you." + +In this age of greed when houses and lands, and stocks and bonds, +outrank human life; when gold is more of value than blood, these words +should be read by all: + + When the psalm sings instead of the singer, + When the script preaches instead of the preacher, + When the pulpit descends and goes instead of the carver that + carved the supporting desk. + When I can touch the body of books by night or day, and + when they touch my body back again, + When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman + and child convince, + When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the + night-watchman's daughter, + When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite and are my + friendly companions, + I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them + as I do of men and women like you. + + + + +VII. + +The poet is also a painter, a sculptor--he, too, deals in form and +color. The great poet is of necessity a great artist. With a few +words he creates pictures, filling his canvas with living men and +women--with those who feel and speak. Have you ever read the account +of the stage-driver's funeral? Let me read it: + + Cold dash of waves at the ferry-wharf, posh and ice in the + river, half-frozen mud in the streets, + A gray discouraged sky overhead, the short last daylight of December, + A hearse and stages, the funeral of an old Broadway stage-driver, + the cortege mostly drivers. + + Steady the trot to the cemetery, duly rattles the death-bell, + The gate is pass'd, the new-dug grave is halted at, the living + alight, the hearse uncloses, + The coffin is pass'd out, lower'd and settled, the whip is laid + on the coffin, the earth is swiftly shovel'd in, + The mound above is flatted with the spades--silence, + A minute--no one moves or speaks--it is done, + He is decently put away--is there any thing more? + + He was a good fellow, free-mouth'd, quick-temper'd, not bad-looking, + Ready with life or death for a friend, fond of women, gambled, + ate hearty, drank hearty, + Had known what it was to be flush, grew low-spirited + toward the last, sicken'd, was helped by a contribution, + Died, aged forty-one years--and that was his funeral. + + +Let me read you another description--one of a woman: + + Behold a woman! + She looks out from her quaker cap, her face is clearer and + more beautiful than the sky. + + She sits in an armchair under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, + The sun just shines on her old white head. + + Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, + Her grandsons raised the flax, and her grand-daughters + spun it with the distaff and the wheel. + + The melodious character of the earth, + The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go and does + not wish to go, + The justified mother of men. + + +Would you hear of an old-time sea fight? + + Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? + List to the yarn, as my grandmother's father the sailor told it to me. + + Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,) + His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher + or truer, and never was, and never will be; + Along the lower'd eve he came horribly raking us. + + We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touched, + My captain lash'd fast with his own hands. + + We had receiv'd some eighteen pound shots under the water, + On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the + first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead. + + Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark, + Ten o'clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the + gain, and five feet of water reported, + The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold + to give them a chance for themselves. + + The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels, + They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust + + Our frigate takes fire, + The other asks if we demand quarter? + If our colors are struck and the fighting done? + + Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain, + "We have not struck," he composedly cries, "we have just + begun our part of the fighting." + + Only three guns are in use, + One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's mainmast, + Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry + and clear his decks. + + The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially + the main-top, + They hold out bravely during the whole of the action. + + Not a moment's cease, + The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the + powder-magazine. + + One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally + thought we are sinking. + Serene stands the little captain, + He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low, + His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns. + + Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us. + Stretch'd and still lies the midnight, + Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness, + Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass + to the one we have conquer'd, + The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders + through a countenance white as a sheet, + Near by the corpse of the child that serv'd in the cabin, + The dead face of an old salt with long white hair and carefully + curl'd whiskers, + The flames spite of all that can be done flickering aloft and below, + The husky voices of the two or three officers yet fit for duty, + Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of + flesh upon the masts and spars, + Cut of cordage, dangle of rigging, slight shock of the soothe + of waves, + Black and impassive guns, litter of powder-parcels, strong scent, + A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, + Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields + by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors, + The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, + Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and + long, dull, tapering groan. + + +Some people say that this is not poetry--that it lacks measure and +rhyme. + + + + +VIII. + +WHAT IS POETRY? + +The whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. That +is to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, +colors and forms. The motions of the silent, invisible world, where +feeling glows and thought flames--that contains all seeds of +action--are made known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, +relations, uses and qualities--so that the visible universe is a +dictionary, an aggregation of symbols, by which and through which is +carried on the invisible commerce of thought. Each object is capable +of many meanings, or of being used in many ways to convey ideas or +states of feeling or of facts that take place in the world of the brain. + +The greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate +symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. Each +man occupies a world of his own. He is the only citizen of his world. +He is subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the +facts concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other +worlds. No two of these worlds are alike. They are of all kinds, from +the flat, barren, and uninteresting--from the small and shriveled and +worthless--to those whose rivers and mountains and seas and +constellations belittle and cheapen the visible world. The inhabitants +of these marvelous worlds have been the singers of songs, utterers of +great speech--the creators of art. + +And here lies the difference between creators and imitators: the +creator tells what passes in his own world--the imitator does not. The +imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. +He is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he +has traveled. + +In nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged--for the sake of +beauty, they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told +the story of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest +men and even the pity of tyrants. He, above all others, has added to +the intellectual beauty of the world. He has been the true creator of +language, and has left his impress on mankind. + +What I have said is not only true of poetry--it is true of all speech. +All are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. Words have +been invented and are being invented--for the reason that new powers +are found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses and +meanings. The growth of language is necessary on account of the +development of the human mind. The savage needs but few symbols--the +civilized many--the poet most of all. + +The old idea was, however, that the poet must be a rhymer. Before +printing was known, it was said: the rhyme assists the memory. That +excuse no longer exists. + +Is rhyme a necessary part of poetry? In my judgment, rhyme is a +hindrance to expression. The rhymer is compelled to wander from his +subject--to say more or less than he means--to introduce irrelevant +matter that interferes continually with the dramatic action and is a +perpetual obstruction to sincere utterance. + +All poems, of necessity, must be short. The highly and purely poetic +is the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. The +planting of the seed, the growth, the bud and flower must be rapid. +The spring must be quick and warm--the soil perfect, the sunshine and +rain enough--everything should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. In +poetry, as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden. + +The greatest poems are rhythmical. While rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm +seems to be the comrade of the poetic. Rhythm has a natural +foundation. Under emotion, the blood rises and falls, the muscles +contract and relax, and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as +the rise and fall of the sea. In the highest form of expression, the +thought should be in harmony with this natural ebb and flow. + +The highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. I have +sometimes thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own +garments, and that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the +speaker or writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself. + +The great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves. + +I do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured +intervals. Perfect time is the death of music. There should always be +room for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there may +be in the rhythm or time, the action itself should suggest perfect +freedom. + +A word more about rhythm. I believe that certain feelings and +passions--joy, grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular +movements in the brain--that every thought is accompanied by certain +physical phenomena. Now it may be that certain sounds, colors, and +forms produce the same molecular action in the brain that accompanies +certain feelings, and that these sounds, colors and forms produce +first, the molecular movements and these in their turn reproduce the +feelings, emotions and states of mind capable of producing the same or +like molecular movements. So that what we call heroic music, produces +the same molecular action in the brain--the same physical changes--that +are produced by the real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call +plaintive produce the same molecular movement in the brain that grief, +or the twilight of grief, actually produces. There may be a rhythmical +molecular movement belonging to each state of mind, that accompanies +each thought or passion, and it may be that music, or painting, or +sculpture, produces the same state of mind or feeling that produces the +music or painting or sculpture, by producing the same molecular +movements. + +All arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in +different ways--that is to say, they produce like states of mind and +feeling. The sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the +orator, work to the same end, with different materials. The painter +expresses through form and color and relation; the sculptor through +form and relation. The poet also paints and chisels--his words give +form, relation and color. His statues and his paintings do not +crumble, neither do they fade, nor will they as long as language +endures. The composer touches the passions, produces the very states +of feeling produced by the painter and sculptor, the poet and orator. +In all these there must be rhythm--that is to say, proportion--that is +to say, harmony, melody. + +So that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who +gives new meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary things +of life. He must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the +experiences of the people. + +The poetic is not the exceptional. A perfect poem is like a perfect +day. It has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. It must +not appear to be the result of great labor. We feel, in spite of +ourselves, that man does best that which he does easiest. + +The great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but of +the best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the +ideals of his race. The sublimer he is, the simpler he is. The +thoughts of the people must be clad in the garments of feeling--the +words must be known, apt, familiar. The bight must be in the thought, +in the sympathy. + +In the olden time they used to have May day parties, and the prettiest +child was crowned Queen of May. Imagine an old blacksmith and his wife +looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses. +They would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have +so beautiful a child. It is thus that the poet clothes the +intellectual children or ideals of the people. They must not be gemmed +and garlanded beyond the recognition of their parents. Out from all +the flowers and beauty must look the eyes of the child they know. + +We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly +militia excites our laughter. Light-houses have driven sirens from the +dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the +imagination for wonders--there are millions of miracles under our feet. + +Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of +life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for +men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy +that they can comprehend. + +The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and +impossible--he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and +in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is +nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they +hear the solemn sound of the distant bell--two peasants, who have +nothing to be thankful for--nothing but weariness and want, nothing but +the crusts that they soften with their tears--nothing. And yet as you +look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be +thankful for--that they have life, love, and hope--and so the distant +bell makes music in their simple hearts. + + + + +IX. + +The attitude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood. +Towards all forms of worship, towards all creeds, he has maintained the +attitude of absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has +given her last message to man. He does not believe that all has been +ascertained. He denies that any sect has written down the entire +truth. He believes in progress, and, so believing, he says: + + We consider bibles and religions divine--I do not say they + are not divine, + I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of + you still, + It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life. + * * * * * + His [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, + In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent. + * * * * * + Have you thought there could be but a single supreme? + There can be any number of supremes--one does not countervail + another any more than one eyesight countervails another. + + +Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the +serenity of a great and well-poised soul. + + No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about + God and about death. + + I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God + not in the least, + Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.... + In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own + face in the glass, + I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one + is sign'd by God's name. + + +The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is +the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes: + + Not objecting to special revelations--considering a curl of + smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as + curious as any revelation. + + +The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are +too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this +lack in that which has been written and preached, Whitman says: + + Magnifying and applying come I, + Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, + Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, + Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, + Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, + In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the + 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. + + +Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends +his hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is +wrinkled and old and has a long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy +has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks--on +stupidity--and fear. Neither does he reject or accept the new because +it is new. He wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows +just who and what they are. + + + + +X. + +PHILOSOPHY. + +Walt Whitman is a philosopher. + +The more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has +traveled intellectually, the less certain he is. Only the very +ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the +great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the +universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why +and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special +providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that +happens in the universe happens in reference to him. + +A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one +day, that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was +heard to remark: "Who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our +home?" + +Walt Whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother +endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to +fathom the mystery of being; and he said: + + I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, + A few sands and dead leaves to gather, + Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift + * * * * * + Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon + me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, + But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands + yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, + Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, + With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, + Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath.... + I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single + object, and that no man ever can. + + +There is in our language no profounder poem than the one entitled +"Elemental Drifts." + +The effort to find the origin has ever been, and will forever be, +fruitless. Those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a +man looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick +enough he could grasp the image that he sees behind the glass. + +The latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows: + +"To me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a +mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape +and life here somehow giving an important, perhaps the main, outline to +something further. Somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands +behind it, is inside of all facts, and the concrete and material, and +the worldly affairs of life and sense. That is the purport and meaning +behind all the other meanings of LEAVES OF GRASS." + +As a matter of fact, the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the +grasp of the human mind. We can see a certain distance; beyond that, +everything is indistinct; and beyond the indistinct is the unseen. In +the presence of these mysteries--and everything is a mystery so far as +origin, destiny, and nature are concerned--the intelligent, honest man +is compelled to say, "I do not know." + +In the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever--and +from the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light--a few +momentary sparks. + +Some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything +is matter; and again, others have maintained that a part is matter and +a part is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others +that matter was first and spirit after; and others that matter and +spirit have existed together. + +But none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or +what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter. + +The materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; +and the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling. +These spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, +matter is quite a mystery. You take in your hand a little earth--a +little dust. Do you know what it is? In this dust you put a seed; the +rain falls upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts +into blossom; it produces fruit. + +What is this dust--this womb? Do you understand it? Is there anything +in the wide universe more wonderful than this? + +Take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible +particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate its every part for +days, and it remains the citadel of a secret--an impregnable fortress. +Bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in serried +ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts and +arms of thought and force. The citadel does not fall. Over the +battlements floats the flag, and the victorious secret smiles at the +baffled hosts. + +Walt Whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the +limit--the end of the road traveled by the human race. He knows that +every victory over nature is but the preparation for another battle. +This truth was in his mind when he said: "Understand me well; it is +provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, +no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle +necessary." + +This is the generalization of all history. + + + + +XI. + +THE TWO POEMS. + +There are two of these poems to which I have time to call special +attention. The first is entitled, "A Word Out of the Sea." + +The boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and +fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of +briers and blackberries--from the memories of birds--from the thousand +responses of his heart--goes back to the sea and his childhood, and +sings a reminiscence. + +Two guests from Alabama--two birds--build their nest, and there were +four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for +joy: + + Shine! shine! shine! + Pour down your warmth, great sun! + While we bask, we two together. + Two together! + Winds blow south, or winds blow north, + Day come white, or night come black, + Home, or rivers and mountains from home, + Singing all time, minding no time, + While we two keep together. + + +In a little while one of the birds is missed and never appeared again, +and all through the summer the mate, the solitary guest, was singing of +the lost: + + Blow! blow! blow! + Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore; + I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me. + + +And the boy that night, blending himself with the shadows, with bare +feet, went down to the sea, where the white arms out in the breakers +were tirelessly tossing; listening to the songs and translating the +notes. + +And the singing bird called loud and high for the mate, wondering what +the dusky spot was in the brown and yellow, seeing the mate whichever +way he looked, piercing the woods and the earth with his song, hoping +that the mate might hear his cry; stopping that he might not lose her +answer; waiting and then crying again: "Here I am! And this gentle +call is for you. Do not be deceived by the whistle of the wind; those +are the shadows;" and at last crying: + + O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! + In the air, in the woods, over fields, + Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved! + But my mate no more, no more with me! + We two together no more. + + +And then the boy, understanding the song that had awakened in his +breast a thousand songs clearer and louder and more sorrowful than the +bird's, knowing that the cry of unsatisfied love would never again be +absent from him; thinking then of the destiny of all, and asking of the +sea the final word, and the sea answering, delaying not and hurrying +not, spoke the low delicious word "Death!" "ever Death!" + +The next poem, one that will live as long as our language, entitled: +"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," is on the death of Lincoln, + + The sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands. + + +One who reads this will never forget the odor of the lilac, "the +lustrous western star" and "the grey-brown bird singing in the pines +and cedars." + +In this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the +atmosphere and climate in harmony with every event. + +Never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and +night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of +inlooped flags, the processions long and winding, the flambeaus of +night, the torches' flames, the silent sea of faces, the unbared heads, +the thousand voices rising strong and solemn, the dirges, the +shuddering organs, the tolling bells--and the sprig of lilac. + +And then for a moment they will hear the grey-brown bird singing in the +cedars, bashful and tender, while the lustrous star lingers in the +West, and they will remember the pictures hung on the chamber walls to +adorn the burial house--pictures of spring and farms and homes, and the +grey smoke lucid and bright, and the floods of yellow gold--of the +gorgeous indolent sinking sun--the sweet herbage under foot--the green +leaves of the trees prolific--the breast of the river with the +wind-dapple here and there, and the varied and ample land--and the most +excellent sun so calm and haughty--the violet and purple morn with +just-felt breezes--the gentle soft born measureless light--the miracle +spreading, bathing all--the fulfill'd noon--the coming eve delicious +and the welcome night and the stars. + +And then again they will hear the song of the grey-brown bird in the +limitless dusk amid the cedars and pines. Again they will remember the +star, and again the odor of the lilac. + +But most of all, the song of the bird translated and becoming the chant +for death: + + A CHANT FOR DEATH. + + Come lovely and soothing death, + Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, + In the day, in the night, to all, to each, + Sooner or later delicate death. + + Prais'd be the fathomless universe, + For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, + And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise! + For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. + + Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, + Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? + Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, + I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come + unfalteringly. + + Approach strong deliveress, + When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, + Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, + Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death. + + From me to thee glad serenades, + Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and + feastings for thee, + And the sights of the open landscape and the high spread + sky are fitting, + And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. + + The night in silence under many a star, + The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, + And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil'd death, + And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. + + Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, + Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields + and the prairies wide, + Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, + I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death. + + +This poem, in memory of "the sweetest, wisest soul of all our days and +lands," and for whose sake lilac and star and bird entwined, will last +as long as the memory of Lincoln. + + + + +XII. + +OLD AGE. + +Walt Whitman is not only the poet of childhood, of youth, of manhood, +but, above all, of old age. He has not been soured by slander or +petrified by prejudice; neither calumny nor flattery has made him +revengeful or arrogant. Now sitting by the fireside, in the winter of +life, + + His jocund heart still beating in his breast, + +he is just as brave and calm and kind as in his manhood's proudest +days, when roses blossomed in his cheeks. He has taken life's seven +steps. Now, as the gamester might say, "on velvet." He is enjoying +"old age expanded, broad, with the haughty breadth of the universe; old +age, flowing free, with the delicious near-by freedom of death; old +age, superbly rising, welcoming the ineffable aggregation of dying +days." + +He is taking the "loftiest look at last," and before he goes he utters +thanks: + + For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air--for life, mere life, + For precious ever-lingering memories, (of you my mother + dear you, father--you, brothers, sisters, friends.) + For all my days--not those of peace alone the days of war the same, + For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands, + For shelter, wine and meat--for sweet appreciation, + (You distant, dim unknown--or young or old--countless, unspecified, + readers belov'd, + We never met, and ne'er shall meet--and yet our souls embrace, + long, close and long.) + For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books--for colors, forms, + For all the brave strong men--devoted, hardy men--who've + forward sprung in freedom's help, all years, all lands, + For braver, stronger, more devoted men (a special laurel ere + I go, to life's war's chosen ones, + The cannoneers of song and thought--the great artillerists--the + foremost leaders, captains of the soul). + + +It is a great thing to preach philosophy--far greater to live it. The +highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a smile, and greets it +as though it were desired. + +To be satisfied: This is wealth--success. + +The real philosopher knows that everything has happened that could have +happened--consequently he accepts. He is glad that he has lived--glad +that he has had his moment on the stage. In this spirit Whitman has +accepted life. + + I shall go forth, + I shall traverse the States awhile, but I cannot tell whither + or how long, + Perhaps soon some day or night while I am singing my + voice will suddenly cease. + + O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this? + Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?--and yet + it is enough, O soul; + O soul, we have positively appear'd--that is enough. + + +Yes, Walt Whitman has appeared. He has his place upon the stage. The +drama is not ended. His voice is still heard. He is the Poet of +Democracy--of all people. He is the poet of the body and soul. He has +sounded the note of Individuality. He has given the pass-word +primeval. He is the Poet of Humanity--of Intellectual Hospitality. He +has voiced the aspirations of America--and, above all, he is the poet +of Love and Death. + +How grandly, how bravely he has given his thought, and how superb is +his farewell--his leave-taking: + + After the supper and talk--after the day is done, + As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging, + Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating, + (So hard for his hand to release those hands--no more will they meet, + No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young, + A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,) + Shunning, postponing severance seeking to ward off the last + word ever so little, + E'en at the exit-door turning--charges superfluous calling + back--e'en as he descends the steps, + Something to eke out a minute additional--shadows of nightfall + deepening, + Farewells, messages lessening--dimmer the forthgoer's visage + and form, + Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness loth, O so loth to depart! + + +And is this all? Will the forthgoer be lost, and forever? Is death +the end? Over the grave bends Love sobbing, and by her side stands +Hope and whispers: + +We shall meet again. Before all life is death, and after all death is +life. The falling leaf, touched with the hectic flush, that testifies +of autumn's death, is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring. + +Walt Whitman has dreamed great dreams, told great truths and uttered +sublime thoughts. He has held aloft the torch and bravely led the way. + +As you read the marvelous book, or the person, called "Leaves of +Grass," you feel the freedom of the antique world; you hear the voices +of the morning, of the first great singers--voices elemental as those +of sea and storm. The horizon enlarges, the heavens grow ample, +limitations are forgotten--the realization of the will, the +accomplishment of the ideal, seem to be within your power. +Obstructions become petty and disappear. The chains and bars are +broken, and the distinctions of caste are lost. The soul is in the +open air, under the blue and stars--the flag of Nature. Creeds, +theories and philosophies ask to be examined, contradicted, +reconstructed. Prejudices disappear, superstitions vanish and custom +abdicates. The sacred places become highways, duties and desires clasp +hands and become comrades and friends. Authority drops the scepter, +the priest the miter, and the purple falls from kings. The inanimate +becomes articulate, the meanest and humblest things utter speech and +the dumb and voiceless burst into song. A feeling of independence +takes possession of the soul, the body expands, the blood flows full +and free, superiors vanish, flattery is a lost art, and life becomes +rich, royal, and superb. The world becomes a personal possession, and +the oceans, the continents, and constellations belong to you. You are +in the center, everything radiates from you, and in your veins beats +and throbs the pulse of all life. You become a rover, careless and +free. You wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. +You feel the silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the +intertwined and over arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds +and woods. You are borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear +the rush and roar of cataracts as they fall beneath the seven-hued +arch, and watch the eagles as they circling soar. You traverse gorges +dark and dim, and climb the scarred and threatening cliffs. You stand +in orchards where the blossoms fall like snow, where the birds nest and +sing, and painted moths make aimless journeys through the happy air. +You live the lives of those who till the earth, and walk amid the +perfumed fields, hear the reapers' song, and feel the breadth and scope +of earth and sky. You are in the great cities, in the midst of +multitudes, of the endless processions. You are on the wide +plains--the prairies--with hunter and trapper, with savage and pioneer, +and you feel the soft grass yielding under your feet. You sail in many +ships, and breathe the free air of the sea. You travel many roads, and +countless paths. You visit palaces and prisons, hospitals and courts; +you pity kings and convicts, and your sympathy goes out to all the +suffering and insane, the oppressed and enslaved, and even to the +infamous. You hear the din of labor, all sounds of factory, field, and +forest, of all tools, instruments and machines. You become familiar +with men and women of all employments, trades and professions--with +birth and burial, with wedding feast and funeral chant. You see the +cloud and flame of war, and you enjoy the ineffable perfect days of +peace. In this one book, in these wondrous "Leaves of Grass," you find +hints and suggestions, touches and fragments, of all there is of life, +that lies between the babe, whose rounded cheeks dimple beneath his +mother's laughing, loving eyes, and the old man, snow-crowned, who, +with a smile, extends his hand to death. + +We have met to-night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of +"Leaves of Grass." + + +[Illustration: Chapter XII tailpiece] + + + + +ADDRESS AT THE + +Funeral of Walt Whitman + +BY ROBERT O. INGERSOLL, + +At Harleigh, Camden, New Jersey, March 30, 1892. + + +Again, we, in the mystery of Life, are brought face to face with the +mystery of Death. A great man, a great American, the most eminent +citizen of this Republic, lies dead before us, and we have met to pay +tribute to his greatness and his worth. + +I know he needs no words of mine. His fame is secure. He laid the +foundations of it deep in the human heart and brain. He was, above all +I have known, the poet of humanity, of sympathy. He was so great that +he rose above the greatest that he met without arrogance, and so great +that he stooped to the lowest without conscious condescension. He +never claimed to be lower or greater than any of the sons of men. + +He came into our generation a free, untrammeled spirit, with sympathy +for all. His arm was beneath the form of the sick. He sympathized +with the imprisoned and despised, and even on the brow of crime he was +great enough to place the kiss of human sympathy. + +One of the greatest lines in our literature is his, and the line is +great enough to do honor to the greatest genius that has ever lived. +He said, speaking of an outcast: "Not until the sun excludes you will I +exclude you." + +His charity was as wide as the sky, and wherever there was human +suffering, human misfortune, the sympathy of Whitman bent above it as +the firmament bends above the earth. + +He was built on a broad and splendid plan--ample, without appearing to +have limitations--passing easily for a brother of mountains and seas +and constellations; caring nothing for the little maps and charts with +which timid pilots hug the shore, but giving himself freely with the +recklessness of genius to winds and waves and tides; caring for nothing +so long as the stars were above him. He walked among men, among +writers, among verbal varnishers and veneerers, among literary +milliners and tailors, with the unconscious majesty of an antique god. + +He was the poet of that divine democracy which gives equal rights to +all the sons and daughters of men. He uttered the great American +voice; uttered a song worthy of the great Republic. No man has ever +said more for the rights of humanity, more in favor of real democracy, +of real justice. He neither scorned nor cringed; was neither tyrant +nor slave. He asked only to stand the equal of his fellows beneath the +great flag of nature, the blue and stars. + +He was the poet of life. It was a joy simply to breathe. He loved the +clouds; he enjoyed the breath of morning, the twilight, the wind, the +winding streams. He loved to look at the sea when the waves burst into +the whitecaps of joy. He loved the fields, the hills; he was +acquainted with the trees, with birds, with all the beautiful objects +of the earth. He not only saw these objects, but understood their +meaning, and he used them that he might exhibit his heart to his +fellow-men. + +He was the poet of Love. He was not ashamed of that divine passion +that has built every home; that divine passion that has painted every +picture and given us every real work of art; that divine passion that +has made the world worth living in and has given some value to human +life. + +He was the poet of the natural, and taught men not to be ashamed of +that which is natural. He was not only the poet of democracy, not only +the poet of the great Republic, but he was the poet of the human race. +He was not confined to the limits of this country, but his sympathy +went out over the seas to all the nations of the earth. + +He stretched out his hands and felt himself the equal of all kings and +of all princes, and the brother of all men, no matter how high, no +matter how low. + +He has uttered more supreme words than any writer of our century, +possibly of almost any other. He was, above all things, a man, and +above genius, above all the snow-capped peaks of intelligence, above +all art, rises the true man. + +He was the poet of Death. He accepted all life and all death, and he +justified all. He had the courage to meet all, and was great enough +and splendid enough to harmonize all and to accept all there is as a +divine melody. + +You know better than I what his life has been, but let me say one +thing: Knowing as he did, what others can know and what they can not, +he accepted and absorbed all theories, all creeds, all religions, and +believed in none. His philosophy was a sky that embraced all clouds +and accounted for all clouds. He had a philosophy and a religion of +his own, broader, as he believed--and as I believe--than others. He +accepted all, he understood all, and he was above all. + +He was absolutely true to himself. He had frankness and courage, and +he was as candid as light. He was willing that all the sons of men +should be absolutely acquainted with his heart and brain. He had +nothing to conceal. Frank, candid, pure, serene, noble, and yet for +years he was maligned and slandered, simply because he had the candor +of nature. He will be understood yet, and that for which he was +condemned--his frankness, his candor--will add to the glory and +greatness of his fame. + +He wrote a liturgy for mankind; he wrote a great and splendid psalm of +life, and he gave to us the gospel of humanity--the greatest gospel +that can be preached. + +He was not afraid to live; not afraid to die. For many years he and +Death lived near neighbors. He was always willing and ready to meet +and greet this king called Death, and for many months he sat in the +deepening twilight waiting for the night; waiting for the light. + +He never lost his hope. When the mists filled the valleys, he looked +upon the mountain tops, and when the mountains in darkness disappeared, +fixed his gaze upon the stars. + +In his brain were the blessed memories of the day and in his heart were +mingled the dawn and dusk of life. + +He was not afraid; he was cheerful every moment. The laughing nymphs +of day did not desert him. They remained that they might clasp the +hands and greet with smiles the veiled and silent sisters of the night. +And when they did come, Walt Whitman stretched his hand to them. On +one side were the nymphs of day, and on the other the silent sisters of +the night, and so, hand in hand, between smiles and tears, he reached +his journey's end. + +From the frontier of life, from the western wave-kissed shore, he sent +us messages of content and hope, and these messages seem now like +strains of music blown by the "Mystic Trumpeter" from Death's pale +realm. + +To-day we give back to Mother Nature, to her clasp and kiss, one of the +bravest, sweetest souls that ever lived in human clay. + +Charitable as the air and generous as Nature, he was negligent of all +except to do and say what he believed he should do and should say. + +And I to-day thank him, not only for you but for myself, for all the +brave words he has uttered. I thank him for all the great and splendid +words he has said in favor of liberty, in favor of man and woman, in +favor of motherhood, in favor of fathers, in favor of children, and I +thank him for the brave words that he has said of death. + +He has lived, he has died, and death is less terrible than it was +before. Thousands and millions will walk down into the "dark valley of +the shadow" holding Walt Whitman by the hand. Long after we are dead +the brave words he has spoken will sound like trumpets to the dying. + +And so I lay this little wreath upon this great man's tomb. I loved +him living, and I love him still. + + + + +A New Book About the Bible. + +The Best One of All....... + + +THE BIBLE + +By JOHN E. REMSBURG. + +Large 12mo. 500 pages. Cloth, $1.25 net. Postpaid. + +Eleven Chapters on the Authenticity of the Bible--Thirteen on the +Credibility of the Bible--Ten on the Morality of the Bible--With an +Appendix of Unanswerable Arguments Against the Divine Origin and in +Favor of the Human Origin of the Bible. + +Twenty-six pages of Index, enabling the reader to refer in an instant +to any Authority quoted or Argument used. + +The titles of the chapters, in detail, are: Sacred Books of the World, +The Christian Bible, Formation of the Canoa, Different Versions of the +Bible, Authorship and Dates, The Pentateuch, The Prophets, The +Hagiographa, The Four Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, and Revelation; +Pauline Epistles, Textual Errors, Two Cosmogonies of Genesis, The +Patriarchal Age, The Jewish Kings, Inspired Numbers, When Did +Jehoshaphat Die?, Harmony of the Gospels, Paul and the Apostles, The +Bible and History, The Bible and Science, Prophecies, Miracles, The +Bible God, The Bible Not a Moral Guide, Lying, Cheating, Stealing, +Murder, War, Human Sacrifices, Cannibalism, Witchcraft, Slavery, +Polygamy, Adultery, Obscenity, Intemperance, Vagrancy, Ignorance, +Injustice to women, Unkindness to Children, Cruelty to Animals, +Tyranny, Intolerance, Conclusion, Appendix. + + +*** _The book makes some five hundred Pages and is printed handsomely +on heavy paper, with wide margins. Price, $1.25 net_ + + +Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., + +28 Lafayette Place, New York, N. Y. + + + +New Testament Stories + +Comically Illustrated + +NEARLY 400 PAGES + +A PAGE OF TEXT TO EACH PICTURE + +ABOUT 200 PICTURES + + +These Pictures are the Illustrations which appeared in The Truth Seeker +and were highly commended for their wit and point. The Text is in +chief part by George E. Macdonald, most favorably known to readers of +The Truth Seeker. The Cover is from an original design by Ryan Walker, +one of the best cartoonists in the whole country. + +_Cloth covers, design in white and tint, $1.50. Board covers, +illuminated, $1._ + + +The Book covers the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation, and the +principal incidents in the careers of the "Son of Man" and his "army" +are illustrated in a humorous manner, accompanied with a page of text +still more effective. Mr. George E. Macdonald possesses the delicate +touch of Mark Twain and the quaint conceptions of Bill Nye, with a +style all his own. A perusal of this book cannot fail to destroy the +superstitious regard for the New Testament now held by deceived +Christians. The absurdity of the events narrated in the Gospels, Acts, +and Epistles is made apparent; and while there is nothing in the work +to offend by its "blasphemy," there is a great deal which will convince +its readers that the religion of the New Testament is equally +mythological with the history of the Old Testament. The book combines +amusement with instruction, like the "moral pocket handkerchiefs" Mrs. +Weller's church sent to the heathen. + + +Cloth covers, $1.50; board covers, $1.00. + +Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., + +28 Lafayette Place, New York, N. Y. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Walt Whitman, by Robert G. 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