Whitman is no moralist, and has no formal philosophy to offer. But the
modern spirit which always seeks after some "criticism of life" does not
forsake even the Vagabond. He is certainly the only Vagabond, with the
exception of Thoreau, who has felt himself charged with a message for his
fellows. The popular tendency is to look for a "message" in all literary
artists, and the result is that the art in question is knocked sometimes
out of all shape in order to wrest from it some creed or ethical
teaching. And as the particular message usually happens to be something
that especially appeals to the seeker, the number of conflicting messages
wrung from the unfortunate literary artist are somewhat disconcerting.
But in Whitman's case the task of the message hunter is quite simple.
Whitman never leaves us in doubt what he believes in, and what ideas he
wishes to propagate. It is of course easy--perhaps inevitable--that with
a writer whose method it is to hint, suggest, indicate, rather than
formulate, elaborate, codify, the student should read in more than was
intended. And, after all, as George Eliot said, "The words of Genius
bear a wider meaning than the thought which prompted them." But at any
rate there is no mistaking the general outline of his thought, for his
outlook upon life is as distinctive as Browning's, and indeed possesses
many points of similarity. But in speaking of Whitman's message one
thing must be borne in mind. Whitman's work must not be adjudged merely
as a special blend of Altruism and Individualism. No man ever works, it
has been well said {199}--not even if philanthropy be his trade--from the
primary impulse to help or console other people, any more than his body
performs its functions for the sake of other people. And what Professor
Nettleship says of Browning might be applied with equal truth to Whitman.
His work consists "not in his being a teacher, or even wanting to be one,
but in his doing exactly the work he liked best and could not help
doing." And Whitman's stimulating thought is not the less true for that,
for it is the spontaneous expression of his personality, just as fully as
a melody or picture is an expression of an artist's personality. He
could no more help being a teacher than he could help breathing. And his
teaching must be valued not in accordance with the philosophy of the
schools, not by comparison with the ethics of the professional moralist,
but as the natural and inevitable outcome of his personality and
temperament.
As a panacea for social evils Whitman believes in the remedial power of
comradeship in a large-hearted charity.
"You felons on trial in courts,
You convicts in prison cells, you sentenced assassins chained and
handcuffed with iron,
Who am I, too, that I am not on trial or in prison?
Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chained
With iron, or my ankles with iron?"
Mark the watchful impassiveness with which he gazes at the ugly side of
life.
"I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
oppression and shame;
I hear convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves,
remorseful after deeds done;
* * * * *
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny;
I see martyrs and prisoners--
I observe a famine at sea--I observe the sailors casting lots who
shall be killed, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
labourers, the poor, and upon negroes and the like;
All these--all the meanness and agony without end, I sit and look out
upon,
See, hear, and am silent."
No one is too base, too degraded for Whitman's affection. This is no
mere book sentiment with him; and many stories are told of his tenderness
and charity towards the "dregs of humanity." That a man is a human being
is enough for Whitman. However he may have fallen there is something in
him to appeal to. He would have agreed with Browning that--
"Beneath the veriest ash there hides a spark of soul,
Which, quickened by Love's breath, may yet pervade the whole
O' the grey, and free again be fire; of worth the same
Howe'er produced, for great or little flame is flame."
Like Browning, also, Whitman fears lassitude and indifference more than
the turmoil of passion. He glories in the elemental. At present he
thinks we are too fearful of coarseness and rankness, lay too much stress
on refinement. And so he delights in "unrefinement," glories in the
woods, air-sweetness, sun-tan, brawn.
"_So long_!
I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual bold,
And I announce an did age that shall lightly and joyfully meet its
translation."
Cultured conventions, of which we make so much, distress him. They tend,
he argues, to enervation, to a poor imitative, self-conscious art, to an
artificial, morbid life.
His curative methods were heroic; but who can say that they were not
needed, or that they were mischievous?
Certainly in aiming first of all at sincerity he has attained that noble
beauty which is born of strength. Nature, as he saw, was full of vital
loveliness by reason of her very power. The average literary artist is
always seeking for the loveliness, aiming after beauty of form, without a
care whether what he is saying has the ring of sincerity and truth,
whether it is in touch with the realities of Nature. And in his
super-refinements he misses the beauty that flashes forth from the rough,
savage songs of Whitman.
Whitman does not decry culture. But he places first the educative
influence of Nature. "The best Culture," he says, "will always be that
of the manly and courageous instincts and loving perception, and of
self-respect."
No advocate of lawlessness he; the influence of modern sciences informs
every line that he has written.
As Mr. Burroughs very justly says: "Whitman's relation to science is
fundamental and vital. It is the soil under his feet. He comes into a
world from which all childish fear and illusion has been expelled. He
exhibits the religious and poetic faculties perfectly adjusted to a
scientific, industrial, democratic age, and exhibits them more fervent
and buoyant than ever before. We have gained more than we have lost.
The world is anew created by science and democracy, and he pronounces it
good with the joy and fervour of the old faith."
In this respect Mr. Burroughs thinks that Whitman shared with Tennyson
the glory of being one of the two poets in our time who have drawn
inspiration from this source. Certainly no poet of our time has made
finer use as an artist of scientific facts than the late Laureate.
But Tennyson seems scarcely to have drawn inspiration from science as did
Browning, if we look at the thought underlying the verse. On the whole
scientific discoveries depressed rather than cheered him, whereas from
_Paracelsus_ onwards Browning accepts courageously all the results of
modern science, and, as in the case of Whitman, it enlarged his moral and
spiritual horizon.
But he was not a philosopher as Browning was; indeed, there is less of
the philosopher about Whitman than about any poet of our age. His method
is quite opposed to the philosophic. It is instinctive, suggestive, and
as full of contradictions as Nature herself. You can no more extract a
philosophy from his sweeping utterances than you can from a tramp over
the hills.
But, like a tramp over the hills, Whitman fits every reader who
accompanies him for a stronger and more courageous outlook. It is not
easy to say with Whitman as in the case of many writers: "This line
quickened my imagination, that passage unravelled my perplexities." It
is the general effect of his writings that exercises such a remarkable
tonic influence. Perhaps he has never indicated this cumulative power
more happily than in the lines that conclude his "Song of Myself."
"You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
"Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged.
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you."
Yes; that is Whitman's secret--"Good health." To speak of him as did his
biographer, Dr. Bucke, as "perhaps the most advanced nature the world has
yet produced," to rank him, as some have done, with the world's greatest
moral teachers, beside Jesus and Socrates, seems to me the language of
hysterical extravagant. Nay, more, it misses surely the special
significant of his genius.
In his religious thought, his artistic feelings, his affections, there is
breadth of sympathy, sanity of outlook, but an entire absence of
intensity, of depth.
We shall scan his pages vainly for the profound aspiration, the subtle
spiritual insight of our greatest religious teachers. In his
indifference to form, his insensibility to the noblest music, we shall
realize his artistic limitations.
Despite his genial comradeship, the more intimate, the more delicate
experiences of friendship are not to be found in his company. Delicacy,
light and shade, subtlety, intensity, for these qualities you must not
seek Whitman. But that is no reason for neglecting him. The Modern and
Ancient world are rich in these other qualities, and the special need of
the present day is not intensity so much as sanity, not subtlety so much
as breadth.
In one of his clever phrases Mr. Havelock Ellis has described Whitman "as
a kind of Titanic Undine." {204} Perhaps it is a good thing for us that
he never "found his soul." In an age of morbid self-introspection there
is something refreshing in an utterance like this, where he praises the
animals because--
"They do not screech and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to GOD."
In a feverish, restless age it is well to feel the presence of that
large, passive, tolerant figure. There is healing in the cool, firm
touch of his hand; healing in the careless, easy self-confidence of his
utterance. He has spoken to us of "the amplitude of the earth, and the
coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the
earth." And he has done this with the rough outspokenness of the
elements, with the splendid audacity of Nature herself. Brawn, sun-tan,
air-sweetness are things well worth the having, for they mean good
health. That is why we welcome the big, genial sanity of Walt Whitman,
for he has about him the rankness and sweetness of the Earth.