Part 14 (2/2)
There is no contradiction here The poet sounds all the experiences of life, and he gives out the true note at last
”No specification is necessary,--all that a orous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to hih the whole scope of it forever”
VIII
Nothing but the ious purpose can justify certain things in the ”Leaves;” nothing but the most buoyant and pervasive spirituality can justify its overwhelination can offset its tre but the note of universal brotherhood can atone for its vehe but the primal spirit of poesy itself canof the routine poetic, and this endless procession before us of the common and the familiar
IX
Whitman loved the word ”unrefined” It was one of the words he would have us apply to himself He was unrefined, as the air, the soil, the water, and all sweet natural things are unrefined (fine but not _re_fined) He applies the word to himself two or three times in the course of his poems
He loved the words sun-tan, air-sweetness, brawn, etc He speaks of his ”savage song,” not to call forth the bards of the past, he says, but to invoke the bards of the future
”Have I sung so capricious and loud ht help contribute to the production of a ”race of splendid and savage oldeffects of our culture and conventions The decay ofoff of the native populations, were facts full of evil omen His ideal of manly or womanly character is rich in all the purely human qualities and attributes; rich in sex, in syically sound and clean, as well as race, fear delicatesse; Fear theof nature!
Behat precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and e old man he invoked It was no part of his plan to preach, in refined and euphonious teriene and the value of the naturalitself, to exploit a character coarse as well as fine, and to iical quality as well as a psychological and intellectual
”I will scatter the new roughness and gladness a them”
He says to the pale, impotent victim of over-refinement, with intentional rudeness,
”Open your scarf'd chops till I blow grit within you”
X
One of the key-words to Whitman both as a man and a poet is the word ”composite” He was probably the most composite man this century has produced, and in this respect at least is representative of the A of more diverse racial elements than any man of history He seems to have had an intuition of his composite character when he said in his first poee,--I contain multitudes”
The London correspondent of the ”New York Tribune,” in reluctantly conceding at the ti to the British admiration of him, said he was ”rich in telish expert on the subject of teo, said he had all four teuine, the nervous, the melancholic, and the lymphatic, while most persons have but two temperaments, and rarely three
It was probably the composite character of Whitman that caused him to attract such diverse and opposite types of men, lawyers, doctors, scientists, and men of the world,--and that made him personally such a puzzle to most people,--so impossible to classify On the street the promenaders would turn and look after him, and I have often heard them ask each other, ”What man was that?” He has often been taken for a doctor, and during his services in the ar him Noas a benevolent Catholic priest,--then soeneral, or retired sea captain; at one time he was reputed to be one of the owners of the Cunard line of steamers To be taken for a Californian was common One recalls the composite character of the poet whoe 159)
The book is as cos to all men; it lends itself to a multitude of interpretations Every earnest reader of it will find soestion by the aid of which he fancies he can unlock the whole book, but in the end he will be pretty sure to discover that one key is not enough To one critic, his book is the ”hoarse song of a man,”
its manly and masculine element attracts him; to another he is the poet of joy, to another the poet of health, to still another he is the bard of personality; others read him as the poet of nature, or the poet of democracy His French critic, Gabriel Sarrazin, calls him an apostle,--the apostle of the idea that ment of the universal Divinity
XI