WALT WHITMAN stood when he published his book, where all stand to-night,
on the perpetually moving line where history ends and prophecy begins.
He was full of life to the very tips of his fingers--brave, eager,
candid, joyous with health. He was acquainted with the past. He knew
something of song and story, of philosophy and art; much of the heroic
dead, of brave suffering, of the thoughts of men, the habits of the
people--rich as well as poor--familiar with labor, a friend of wind and
wave, touched by love and friendship, liking the open road, enjoying the
fields and paths, the crags, friend of the forest--feeling that he
was free--neither master nor slave; willing that all should know his
thoughts; open as the sky, candid as nature, and he gave his thoughts,
his dreams, his conclusions, his hopes and his mental portrait to his
fellow-men.
Walt Whitman announced the gospel of the body. He confronted the people.
He denied the depravity of man. He insisted that love is not a crime;
that men and women should be proudly natural; that they need not grovel
on the earth and cover their faces for shame, He taught the dignity and
glory of the father and mother; the sacredness of maternity.
Maternity, tender and pure as the tear of pity, holy as suffering--the
crown, the flower, the ecstasy of love!
People had been taught from Bibles and from creeds that maternity was
a kind of crime; that the woman should be purified by some ceremony in
some temple built in honor of some god. This barbarism was attacked in
"Leaves of Grass."
The glory of simple life was sung; a declaration of independence was
made for each and all.
And yet this appeal to manhood and to womanhood was misunderstood. It
was denounced simply because it was in harmony with the great trend of
nature. To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.
It was not the fashion for people to speak or write their thoughts.
We were flooded with the literature of hypocrisy. The writers did not
faithfully describe the worlds in which they lived. They endeavored to
make a fashionable world. They pretended that the cottage or the hut in
which they dwelt was a palace, and they called the little area in which
they threw their slops their domain, their realm, their empire. They
were ashamed of the real, of what their world actually was. They
imitated; that is to say, they told lies, and these lies filled the
literature of most lands.
Walt Whitman defended the sacredness of love, the purity of passion--the
passion that builds every home and fills the world with art and song.
They cried out: "He is a defender of passion--he is a libertine! He
lives in the mire. He lacks spirituality!"
Whoever differs with the multitude, especially with a led
multitude--that is to say, with a multitude of taggers--will find out
from their leaders that he has committed an unpardonable sin. It is
a crime to travel a road of your own, especially if you put up
guide-boards for the information of others.
Many, many centuries ago Epicurus, the greatest man of his century, and
of many centuries before and after, said: "Happiness is the only good;
happiness is the supreme end." This man was temperate, frugal, generous,
noble--and yet through all these years he has been denounced by the
hypocrites of the world as a mere eater and drinker.
It was said that Whitman had exaggerated the importance of love--that
he had made too much of this passion. Let me say that no poet--not
excepting Shakespeare--has had imagination enough to exaggerate the
importance of human love--a passion that contains all heights and all
depths--ample as space, with a sky in which glitter all constellations,
and that has within it all storms, all lightnings, all wrecks and ruins,
all griefs, all sorrows, all shadows, and all the joy and sunshine of
which the heart and brain are capable.
No writer must be measured by a word or paragraph. He is to be measured
by his work--by the tendency, not of one line, but by the tendency of
all.
Which way does the great stream tend? Is it for good or evil? Are the
motives high and noble, or low and infamous?
We cannot measure Shakespeare by a few lines, neither can we measure the
Bible by a few chapters, nor "Leaves of Grass" by a few paragraphs. In
each there are many things that I neither approve nor believe--but
in all books you will find a mingling of wisdom and foolishness, of
prophecies and mistakes--in other words, among the excellencies there
will be defects. The mine is not all gold, or all silver, or all
diamonds--there are baser metals. The trees of the forest are not all of
one size. On some of the highest there are dead and useless limbs,
and there may be growing beneath the bushes weeds, and now and then a
poisonous vine.
If I were to edit the great books of the world, I might leave out some
lines and I might leave out the best. I have no right to make of my
brain a sieve and say that only that which passes through belongs to the
rest of the human race. I claim the right to choose. I give that right
to all.
Walt Whitman had the courage to express his thought--the candor to
tell the truth. And here let me say it gives me joy--a kind of perfect
satisfaction--to look above the bigoted bats, the satisfied owls and
wrens and chickadees, and see the great eagle poised, circling higher
and higher, unconscious of their existence. And it gives me joy, a kind
of perfect satisfaction, to look above the petty passions and jealousies
of small and respectable people, above the considerations of place and
power and reputation, and see a brave, intrepid man.
It must be remembered that the American people had separated from the
Old World--that we had declared not only the independence of colonies,
but the independence of the individual. We had done more--we had
declared that the state could no longer be ruled by the church, and
that the church could not be ruled by the state, and that the individual
could not be ruled by the church.
These declarations were in danger of being forgotten. We needed a new
voice, sonorous, loud and clear, a new poet for America, for the new
epoch, somebody to chant the morning song of the new day.
The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind, fascinates and
instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please the
public. They flatter the stupid and pander to the prejudice of their
readers. They write for the market, making books as other mechanics make
shoes. They have no message, they bear no torch, they are simply the
slaves of customers.
The books they manufacture are handled by "the trade;" they are regarded
as harmless. The pulpit does not object; the young person can read the
monotonous pages without a blush--or a thought.
On the title pages of these books you will find the imprint of the great
publishers; on the rest of the pages, nothing. These books might be
prescribed for insomnia.