The student of Whitman's life and works will be early struck by three
things,--his sudden burst into song, the maturity of his work from the
first, and his self-knowledge and self-estimate. The fit of inspiration
came upon him suddenly; it was like the flowering of the orchards in
spring; there was little or no hint of it till almost the very hour of
the event. Up to the time of the appearance of the first edition of
"Leaves of Grass," he had produced nothing above mediocrity. A hack writer
on newspapers and magazines, then a carpenter and house-builder in a small
way, then that astounding revelation "Leaves of Grass," the very audacity
of it a gospel in itself. How dare he do it? how could he do it, and not
betray hesitation or self-consciousness? It is one of the exceptional
events in literary history. The main body of his work was produced in five
or six years, or between 1854 and 1859. Of course it was a sudden
flowering, which, consciously or unconsciously, must have been long
preparing in his mind. His work must have had a long foreground, as
Emerson suggested. Dr. Bucke, his biographer, thinks it was a special
inspiration,--something analogous to Paul's conversion, a sudden opening
of what the doctor calls "cosmic consciousness."
Another student and lover of Whitman says: "It is certain that some time
about his thirty-fifth year [probably a little earlier] there came over
him a decided change: he seemed immensely to broaden and deepen; he became
less interested in what are usually regarded as the more practical affairs
of life. He lost what little ambition he ever had for money-making, and
permitted good business opportunities to pass unheeded. He ceased to write
the somewhat interesting but altogether commonplace and respectable
stories and verses which he had been in the habit of contributing to
periodicals. He would take long trips into the country, no one knew where,
and would spend more time in his favorite haunts about the city, or on the
ferries, or the tops of omnibuses, at the theatre and opera, in picture
galleries, and wherever he could observe men and women and art and
nature."
Then the maturity of his work from the first line of it! It seems as if he
came into the full possession of himself and of his material at one
bound,--never had to grope for his way and experiment, as most men do.
What apprenticeship he served, or with whom he served it, we get no hint.
He has come to his own, and is in easy, joyful possession of it, when he
first comes into view. He outlines his scheme in his first poem, "Starting
from Paumanok," and he has kept the letter and the spirit of every promise
therein made. We never see him doubtful or hesitating; we never see him
battling for his territory, and uncertain whether or not he is upon his
own ground. He has an air of contentment, of mastery and triumph, from the
start.
His extraordinary self-estimate and self-awareness are equally noticeable.
We should probably have to go back to sacred history to find a parallel
case. The manner of man he was, his composite character, his relation to
his country and times, his unlikeness to other poets, his affinity to the
common people, how he would puzzle and elude his critics, how his words
would itch at our ears till we understood them, etc.,--how did he know all
this from the first?