" His personality is unique. In many respects he
still baffles our curiosity. He repels many of his countrymen
without arousing the pity which adds to their romantic interest
in Poe. Whatever our literary students may feel, and whatever
foreign critics may assert, it must be acknowledged that to the
vast majority of American men and women "good old Walt" is still
an outsider.
Let us try to see first the type of mind with which we are
dealing. It is fundamentally religious, perceiving the unity and
kinship and glory of all created things. It is this passion of
worship which inspired St. Francis of Assisi's "Canticle to the
Sun." It cries, "Benedicite, Omnia opera Domini: All ye Green
Things upon the Earth, bless ye the Lord!" That is the real motto
for Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." Like St. Francis, and like his
own immediate master, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Whitman is a mystic.
He cannot argue the ultimate questions; he asserts them. Instead
of marshaling and sifting the proofs for immortality, he chants
"I know I am deathless.
Pages:
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231