The American spirit is a continental spirit; there is nothing insular or
narrow about it. It is informal, nonchalant, tolerant, sanguine, adaptive,
patient, candid, puts up with things, unfastidious, unmindful of
particulars; disposed to take short cuts, friendly, hospitable,
unostentatious, inclined to exaggerate, generous, unrefined,--never
meddlesome, never hypercritical, never hoggish, never exclusive. Whitman
shared the hopeful optimistic temperament of his countrymen, the faith and
confidence begotten by a great, fertile, sunny land. He expresses the
independence of the people,--their pride, their jealousy of superiors,
their contempt of authority (not always beautiful). Our want of reverence
and veneration are supplemented in him with world-wide sympathies and
good-fellowship.
Emerson is our divine man, the precious quintessence of the New England
type, invaluable for his stimulating and ennobling strain; but his genius
is too astral, too select, too remote, to incarnate and give voice to the
national spirit. Clothe him with flesh and blood, make his daring
affirmations real and vital in a human personality and imbued with the
American spirit, and we are on the way to Whitman.
Moreover, the strong, undisguised man-flavor of "Leaves of Grass," the
throb and pressure in it of those things that make life rank and make it
masterful, and that make for the virility and perpetuity of the race, are,
if it must be confessed, more keenly relished abroad than in this country,
so thoroughly are we yet under the spell of the merely refined and
conventional. We fail to see that in letters, as in life, the great prizes
are not to the polished, but to the virile and the strong.