The shadow of Whitman's self-reliance and heroic self-esteem--the sort of
eddy or back-water--was undoubtedly a childlike fondness for praise and
for seeing his name in print. In his relaxed moments, when the stress of
his task was not upon him, he was indeed in many respects a child. He had
a child's delight in his own picture. He enjoyed hearing himself lauded as
Colonel Ingersoll lauded him in his lecture in Philadelphia, and as his
friends lauded him at his birthday dinner parties during the last two or
three years of his life; he loved to see his name in print, and items
about himself in the newspapers; he sometimes wrote them himself and gave
them to the reporters. And yet nothing is surer than that he shaped his
life and did his work absolutely indifferent to either praise or blame; in
fact, that he deliberately did that which he knew would bring him
dispraise. The candor and openness of the man's nature would not allow him
to conceal or feign anything. If he loved praise, why should he not be
frank about it? Did he not lay claim to the vices and vanities of men
also? At its worst, Whitman's vanity was but the foible of a great nature,
and should count for but little in the final estimate. The common human
nature to which he lay claim will assert itself; it is not always to be
kept up to the heroic pitch.