So far as Whitman stands merely for the spirit of revolt, or of reaction
against current modes in life and literature, I have little interest in
him. As the "apostle of the rough, the uncouth," to use Mr. Howells's
words, the world would long ago have tired of him. The irruption into
letters of the wild and lawless, or of the strained and eccentric, can
amuse and interest us only for a moment. It is because these are only
momentary phases of him, as it were, and because underneath all he
embraces the whole of life and ministers to it, that his fame and
influence are still growing in the world. One hesitates even to call
Whitman the poet of "democracy," or of "personality," or of "the modern,"
because such terms only half define him. He quickly escapes into that
large and universal air which all great art breathes. We cannot sum him up
in a phrase. He flows out on all sides, and his sympathies embrace all
types and conditions of men. He is a great democrat, but, first and last
and over all, he is a great man, a great nature, and deep world-currents
course through him. He is distinctively an American poet, but his
Americanism is only the door through which he enters upon the universal.