The venture continued for about a year but eventually proved unsuccessful. Its failure may have been due to the comparatively small circle of readers which the Free-soil party in Brooklyn could provide, or it may have resulted from the same lack of regularity3 which killed the Long Islander. It is not improbable that Whitman wearied of the continuous mechanical production demanded by the ownership and management of a daily paper. He was not methodical; and his mind was struggling with ideas which made him restless in harness, ideas so large and fundamental that much of the merely ephemeral detail of journalism5 must have become irritating and irksome. When the Freeman collapsed6 it was a bondage7 broken, and its owner and editor became a freeman himself.
His father was some sixty years of age and failing in health, and for lack of anything more suited to his state of mind, Walt joined him, taking up his business and becoming a master carpenter, building small frame-houses in Brooklyn and selling them upon completion as his father had been doing these thirty years.
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Brooklyn was growing fast, and the Whitmans prospered10. Walt lived at home and spent little; he was soon on the way to become rich. What was more important, he was now the master of his own time; and carpentering left his mind free to work entirely11 in its own way. He was no longer being “pushed for copy”. When the mood was urgent he could idle; that is to say, he could give himself up to his thoughts. He could dream, but the saw in his hand and the crisp timber kept him close to reality. He was out of doors, too, and among things rather than thoughts, so that his ideas were but rarely bookish.
Yet though he was the opposite of bookish he was not ill-read. He always carried a volume or part of a magazine in his knapsack with his mid-day dinner;[117] and every week for years he had visited Coney Island beach to bathe there and to read. He watched the English and American reviews, bought second-hand12 copies whenever they contained matter of interest to him, tore out his prize and devoured13 it with his sandwich. He loved especially to read a book in its native elements: the Inferno[118] in an ancient wood, Homer in a hollow of the rocks with the Atlantic surf on either hand, while he saw all the stage-plays of Shakespeare upon the boards.
He had always remained faithful to Scott, and especially to the Border ballads14 of his collection, with their innumerable and repaying notes. He studied the Bible systematically15 and deliberately16, weighing it well and measuring it by the standards of outdoor America in the nineteenth century. In the same way and spirit he had read and re-read Shakespeare’s plays before seeing them, until he could recite extended passages; and he had come to very definite conclusions about their feudal17 and aristocratic atmosphere and influence.
He read ?schylus and Sophocles in translations, and[Pg 58] felt himself nearer to the Greeks than to Shakespeare or the Middle Ages. It is interesting to note that he barely mentions Euripides, most modern of the Hellenes, the poet of women, and was evidently little acquainted with Plato. Surely if he had read The Republic or The Symposium18 there could be no uncertainty19 upon the matter.
But about another poet, as opposed to Plato as any in the category, there is no shade of doubt. Whitman, like Goethe and Napoleon, was a lover of that shadowy being whom Macpherson exploited with such success—Ossian the Celt.[119] Ossian is dead, and for good reasons—we can do much better than read Ossian to-day; but with all his mouthings and in spite of the pother of his smoke, he is not without a flavour of those Irish epics20 which are among the perfect things of pure imagination. And when one thinks of the eighteenth century with its town wit, one cannot wonder at the welcome Macpherson’s Ossian won. Great billowy sea-mists engulf21 its reader; and through them he perceives phantom-forms, which, though they are but the shadows of men, are pointed22 out to him for gods. But at least the sea is there, and the wind and an outdoor world. Whitman was not blind to the indefinite and misty23 in Ossian.[120] He himself clung to the concrete, and though he could rant24 he preferred upon the whole to use familiar phrases. But he loved Ossian for better, for worse. And we may add as a corollary he disliked Milton.[121]
In the case of the foreign classics I have mentioned, and of others like Don Quixote, Rousseau, and the stories of the Nibelungen,[122] he fell back upon translations, and in works of classical verse, often upon prose. He declaimed the Iliad in Pope’s heroics, but he studied it according to Buckley.[123]
As a journalist and writer for the magazines, he had become more or less acquainted with contemporary literature, but, with few exceptions only, it seems to have[Pg 59] affected25 him negatively. He knew something of Wordsworth, Byron and Keats;[124] the first he said was too much of a recluse26 and too little of a lover of his kind; Byron was a pessimist27, and in the last of the three he seemed only to find one of the over-sensitive products of civilisation28 and gentility. Tennyson—whose “Ulysses” (1842) was a special favourite—interested him from the beginning, though Whitman always resented what he called his “feudal” atmosphere.[125] It is doubtful whether he had yet read anything of Carlyle’s, though he would be acquainted with the ideas of Heroes and Hero-Worship.
Among Americans, he was apparently29 most familiar with Bryant and with Fenimore Cooper. When he first studied Emerson is uncertain; he seems to have known him as a lecturer, and could not have been ignorant of the general tendencies of his teaching.[126] Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” Lowell’s “Biglow Papers” and Whittier’s “Voices of Freedom” were the talk of the time. He had met Poe; and his tragic30 death at Baltimore in 1849 may have set him to re-read the brilliant but disappointing verses, and profounder criticism, of that ill-starred genius.[127]
But it was from the pages of the Bible, of Homer and of Shakespeare, of Ossian and of Scott that he derived31 most. Ballads he loved when they came from the folk; but Blake and Shelley, the purely32 lyrical writers of the new era, do not seem to have touched him; perhaps they were hardly virile33 enough, for when he came to know and appreciate Burns, it was as a lyrist who was at once the poet of the people and a full-blooded man. From all of which it may be deduced that it was the elemental and the virile, rather than the subtle qualities of imagination which appealed to him; he responded to breadth and strength of movement and of passion, rather than to any kind of formal or static beauty. For him, poetry was a passionate34 movement, the rhythm of progress, the march of humanity, the procession of[Pg 60] Freedom. It was more; it was an abandonment to world-emotions. Where he felt this abandonment to inspiration, he recognised poetry, and only there. In American literature he did not feel it at all.
When he read poetry, the sea was his favourite companion. The rhythm of the waves satisfied the rhythmical35 needs of his mind. Everything that belonged to the sea exercised a spell over him. The first vision that made him desire the gift of words was that of a full-rigged ship;[128] and the love of ships and shipping36 remained a passion with him to the end; so that when he sought to describe his own very soul it was as a ship he figured it. For the embrace of the sea itself, for the swimmer’s joy,[129] he had the lover’s passion of a Swinburne or a Meredith.
His reading was not, of course, confined to pure literature, but we have no list of the books which he read in other departments. We know that he was deeply interested in the problems of philosophy and the discoveries of science.
Though never what is called a serious student of their works, he had a good understanding of the attitude both of the metaphysicians and of the physicists37 of his time; and he had no quarrel with either. In his simple and direct way he came indeed very near to them both; for he loved and reverenced38 concrete fact as he reverenced the concept of the cosmos40. Individual facts were significant to him because they were all details of a Whole, but he loved facts too for their own sake. And to the Whole, the cosmos, his soul responded as ardently42 as to the detailed43 parts. The deeper his knowledge of detail—the closer his grasp upon facts—the more intense must be his consciousness of the Whole. This consciousness of the Whole illuminated44 him more fully45 about this date, in a way I will soon recount; it must for some time previously46 have been exercising an influence upon his thought.
Regarding poetry as the rhythmical utterance47 of emo[Pg 61]tions which are produced in the soul by its relation to the world, he doubtless regarded science as the means by which that world becomes concrete, diverse and real to the soul, as it becomes one and comprehensible to it through philosophy. Science and philosophy seemed alike essential, not hostile, to poetry. Poetry is the utterance of an inspired emotion; but an emotion inspired by what? By the discovery that the Other and the Self are so akin9 that joy and passion arise from their contact.
In order to conceive of science or philosophy as hostile to poetry, we must think of them as building up some barrier between us and the world. But in this respect modern science does not threaten poetry, for it recognises the homogeneity of a material self with a material world; neither does idealism threaten the source of this emotion, regarding the self and the world as both essentially48 ideal.
The aim of modern thought has been, not to isolate49 the soul, but rather to give it back to the world of relations. It seems to me that, in so far as Religion has attempted to separate between the Self and things, between God and Man, between the soul and the flesh, Religion has cut at the roots of poetry; but the Religion which attempted this is not, I believe, the religion of the modern world.
Whitman then accepted modern science and philosophy with equanimity50, in so far as he understood them, and in their own spheres. Apparent antagonisms51 between them did not trouble him. They were for him different functions of the one soul. He was too sensible of his own identity and unity52 in himself to share in the perplexity of those who lose this sense through the exclusive exercise of one or other of their functions. His joint53 exercise of these proved them to be harmonious54. He was unconscious of any quarrel in himself between the scientific and the poetic55, the religious and the philosophic56 faculties57.
Definitions in such large matters must generally seem absurd and almost useless, yet here they may be sug[Pg 62]gestive. If Whitman had formulated58 his thought he might, perhaps, have said: “Science is the Self probing into the details of the Not-self; Philosophy is the Self describing the Not-self as a Whole; Religion is the attitude of the Self toward the Not-self; and Poetry springs from the passionate realisation of the homogeneity of the Self with the Not-self”.
In such rough and confessedly crude definitions we may suggest, at any rate, a theory for his attitude toward the thought of his day. That thought, it seems unnecessary to add, was impregnated by the positive spirit of science. Names like those of Leibnitz, Lamarck, Goethe, Hegel and Comte remind us that the idea of evolution was becoming more and more suggestive in every field—soon to be enforced anew, and more definitely, by Darwin, Wallace and Spencer. The idea of an indwelling and unfolding principle or energy is the special characteristic of nineteenth century thought; and it has been accompanied by a new reverence39 for all that participates in the process of becoming. Every form of life has its secret, and is worthy59 of study, for that secret is a part of the World’s Secret, the Eternal Purpose which affects every soul. We are each a part of that progressive purpose which we call the universe. But we are each absolutely and utterly60 distinct and individual. Every one has his own secret, his own purpose; in the old phrase, it is to his own master that each one standeth or falleth.
Ideas such as these, the affirmations of a new age, were driving the remnants of the old faiths and the dogmas of the school of Paley into the limbo61 of the incredible; but they were also casting out the futile62 atheisms and scepticisms of the dead century. The era of Mazzini, Browning, Ruskin, Emerson, was an era of affirmations, not an era of doubt. And Whitman caught the spirit of his age: eagerly he accepted and assimilated it.
His knowledge of modern thought came to him chiefly through the more popular channels of periodical literature, and through conversations with thoughtful[Pg 63] men. Probably the largest and most important part of his reading, then and always, was the daily press. A journalist himself, he had besides an insatiable craving63 for living facts, and especially for American facts. He wanted to know everything about his country. America was his passion: he understood America. Sometimes he wondered if he was alone in that.
The papers were, indeed, crowded with news of enterprise and adventure. In California, the new territory which Frémont and Stockton had taken from Mexico, gold was discovered in 1848, and in eighteen months a torrent64 of 50,000 argonauts had poured across the isthmus65 and over the plains, leaving their trail of dead through the awful grey solitude66 of the waterless desert. In the summer of ’49 there were five hundred vessels67 lying in San Francisco harbour,[130] where a few years earlier a single visitor had been comparatively rare. And at the same hour, on the eastern coast, every port was a-clamour with men frantically68 demanding a passage, and the refrain of the pilgrims’ song was everywhere heard,
Oh, California, that’s the land for me.
There is no indication in Whitman’s writings that he was ever swept off his feet by this fierce tide of adventure. Anyone who has felt such a current setting in among the fluid populations of the West is not likely to underestimate its power. Even in the more staid and sober East the excitement must have been intense: and it is, at the first thought, surprising that Walt, who was still full of youth and strength and ambition, should have remained at home. On second thought, however, it is clear that gold-seeking was about the last enterprise to entice69 a man who was shortly to relinquish70 house-building because he was accumulating money.
The attraction of the new lands may have been strong when the Freeman released him, but he had had wander[Pg 64]ing enough for the present, and the attraction of New York itself was at least as strong. Unlike Joaquin Miller71, who was among the first in each of the new mining camps which sprang up along the Pacific slopes during the next fifty years, Whitman remained within the circle of New York Bay. He was content to see the vessels being built for their long and hazardous72 voyage, strong to take all the buffeting73 of two oceans—those beautiful Yankee clipper ships which have never been rivalled for grace combined with speed. He was content to see all the possibilities of that bold frontier life in the friendly faces of young men leaning over the bench or driving their jolly teams.
He was not one of those who need to go afield in order that their sluggish74 blood may be quickened into daring, or their dull mood be thrilled with admiring wonder. Nothing was commonplace to his eyes, and he found adventures enough to occupy him in any street. Thus while others were framing new governments for new communities, he stayed at home and framed new houses for new families of workmen; and perhaps after all, in his transcendental fashion, he found his own work the more romantic. He had a deeply-rooted prejudice against the exceptional; he planned for himself the life of an average American of the middle nineteenth century, no longer geographically76 a frontiersman, though more than ever a pioneer in other fields. He would have taken his pan and washed for gold in the Sacramento had he wanted; but the Brooklyn streets and ferry, Broadway and the faces of New York held him. He had not exhausted77 them yet.
He had, moreover, a strongly conservative instinct, an inclination78 to “stay put,” evident in his story from this time forth79. He was not a nomad80, forever striking his tent and moving on; he wanted a settled home, and attached himself more than most men to the familiar. He took root, like a tree. The secure immobility of his base allowed him to stretch his branches far in every direction.
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His mind, too, we may be sure, was occupied with its own problems. At first, perhaps, as an inner struggle with insurgent81 and rebel thoughts and desires, but now as an effort of the conscious self to include and harmonise new elements, and so to lie open to all experience with equanimity, refusing none. Such a process of integration82 in a mind like Whitman’s requires years of slow growth and brooding consciousness, if it is to be fully and finally achieved. And as the integration of his character became more and more complete, he won another point of view upon all things, and, as it were, saw all things new. It is little wonder that we have but scanty83 record of the years from 1850 to 1855.
In his home-life in Brooklyn he was happy and beloved and able to follow his own path without being questioned, or, for that matter, understood. He was probably not quite the easiest of men to live with.[131] He had his own notions, with which others were not allowed to interfere84; he never took advice, and was not too considerate of domestic arrangements.
As to money, which was never too plentiful85 in the household, he professed86 and felt a royal indifference87, in which, one may suspect, the others did not share. The father was somewhat penurious88 on occasion and capable of sharp practice; he had worked hard and incessantly89, and had known poverty; the youngest son, moreover, would always be dependent upon others, and Jesse, the oldest, seems to have displayed little ability. One can understand that the father and his second son—who, with the largest share of capacity, must have seemed to the old man the most given over to profitless whims90 and to idle pleasures—had not always found it easy to live together, and that in the past the mother, with her good sense and understanding of them both, had often had to mediate91 between them. In the later years, however, Walt understood his father thoroughly92 and himself better, so that their relationship became as happy as it was really affectionate.
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His knowledge of the world, his coolness in a crisis, his deliberate balancing of the facts, and yet more deliberate and confident pronouncing of judgment93, made him an oracle94 to be consulted by his family and the neighbours on every occasion of difficulty. The sisters and younger brothers were all fond of him; he was more than good-natured and kind, and never presumed upon his older years to limit their freedom of action or thought.
The man’s kindliness95 and benignity96 are admirably suggested in the portraits taken in his thirty-sixth year, the earliest that we have. One in particular—that chosen for the frontispiece of this book—is almost articulate with candour and goodwill97. In many respects it is the most interesting of the hundred or more portraits extant. Whitman was an excellent sitter, especially to the camera. His photographs give you a glance of recognition, and rarely wear the abstracted look, the stolidity98, which is noticeable in several easel pictures.
The daguerrotype of 1854 is the most speaking of the whole series. It is an absolutely frank face, by no means the mask which, according to the sitter himself, one of the later portraits shows. It is frank, and it is kindly99, but how much more! The longer one gazes at it the more complex its suggestions become. The eyes are not only kind, they are the eyes of a mystic, a seer; they are a thought wistful, but they are very clear. Like William Blake’s, they are eyes that are good for the two visions; they see and they are seen through. If, as I suppose is probable, something of the expression is due to the fact that the photograph was taken on a brilliant summer’s day, we can only congratulate ourselves that the elements co-operated with the sitter’s soul.
In striking contrast with the eyes is the good-natured but loose mouth, a faun-like expression upon its thick lips, which dismisses at once any fancy of the ascetic100 saint. The nose, too, is thick, strong and straight, with large nostrils101. Even in the photograph you can feel that[Pg 67] rich and open texture102 of the skin which radiates the joy of living from every pore.
It is the face, above all, of a man, and the face of a man you would choose for a comrade; there would be no fear of his failing or misunderstanding you. But, withal, it is the face of a spirit wholly untamed, a wood-creature if you will, perhaps the face of Adam himself, looking out upon Eden with divine eyes of immortality104.
Remember, as you meet his gaze, that he knows the life of cities, and that the Fall lies behind him, not before. Perhaps that is why some who have looked at it describe it as the “Christ portrait”—for Jesus was the second Adam—but this is not the ascetic Christ of the Churches, the smile about the lips is too full for that. No, it is the face of a man responsive to all the appeals of the senses, a man who drives the full team of those wild horses of passion which tear in pieces less harmonious souls.
This is a man who saw life whole, and had joy of it. He knew the life of the body on every side, save that of sickness, and of the mind on every side, save that of fear. His large, friendly, attractive personality was always feeding him with the materials of experience, and there was nothing in it all which he did not relish105. The responses of his nature to each object and incident were joyous106; for the responses of a harmonious nature are musical, whatever be the touch that rouses them.
A shrewd estimate of Whitman’s character had been made five years before by a New York phrenologist, and its general accuracy seems to have vanquished107 the incredulity of its subject.[132] Mr. Fowler described him—I will translate the jargon108 of his pseudo-science into plain English—as capable of deep friendship and sympathy, with tendencies to stubbornness and self-esteem, and a strong feeling for the sublime109. He thought that Whitman’s danger lay in the direction of indolence and[Pg 68] sensuality, “and a certain reckless swing of animal will”. At the same time he recognised in him the quality of caution largely developed.
As this estimate was subsequently quoted by Whitman with approval, and referred to as an authority, it evidently tallied110 with his reading of himself, and while it is by no means remarkable111 or particularly significant, it bears out other testimony112. That “reckless swing of animal will” always distinguished113 him from the colourless peripatetic114 brains and cold-blooded collectors of copy so numerous in the hosts of journalism. Walt came of a race of slow but passionate men, and when he was deeply moved he could be terrible. At such times his wrath115 blazed up and overwhelmed him in its sudden access, but it was as short-lived as it was swift.
It is related[133] that once in a Brooklyn church he failed to remove his soft broad-brimmed hat, and entered the building with his head thus covered, looking for all the world like some Quaker of the olden time. The offending article was roughly knocked off by the verger. Walt picked it up, twisted it into a sort of scourge116, seized the astonished official by the collar—he always detested117 officials—trounced him with it, clapped it on his head again, and so, abruptly118 and coolly, left the church. He was a tall, muscular fellow, stood six feet two, and was broad in proportion, and could deal effectually with an offensive person when he felt that action was called for. Such actions naturally added to his popularity among the “boys”—the stage-drivers, firemen and others—with whom he was always a favourite. But, as a rule, he had no occasion to use his strength in this manner. He never gave, and rarely recognised, provocation119. There are times, however, when persuasion120 has to give place to more summary demonstrations121 of purpose.
Of his strength, but especially of his health, he was not a little proud. As a lad, the praise that delighted him most was that of his well-developed body as he bathed.[134] He did not care to be thought handsome; he[Pg 69] knew that wholesomeness122 and health were really more attractive, and he was content with his own perfect soundness. He was never ailing8, even when, in his ’teens, he outgrew124 for a time his natural vigour125. In middle life it was his boast that he could not remember what it was to be sick. Vanity is so natural in the young that when properly based it is probably a virtue126, and there can be no question that Walt’s was well-founded.
There is something more, however, in the portrait I have been describing than the perfection of physical health. It is health raised to its highest possibility, which radiates outward from the innermost seat of life, potent127 with the magnetism128 of personality, through every pore and particle of flesh. His health, hitherto unbroken, had been deepened into that sense of spiritual well-being129 which, in its fulness, only accompanies the realisation of harmony or wholeness.[135] He had undergone some fusing process which ended in unity and illumination.
It is difficult to say anything at all adequate about such an experience, because it appears to belong to the highest of the stages of consciousness which the race has yet attained130; and because there are many men and women of the finest intellectual training and the widest culture to whom it remains131 foreign.
The petals132 of consciousness unfold as it were from within, and every stage of unfolding, being symmetrical, appears to be perfect. A further evolution is almost inconceivable, but the flower still unfolds. The healthy and vigorous personality of the man whose story we are trying to read, continued its development a stage further than the general, and at an age of from thirty to thirty-five established an exceptional relation with the universe.
That exceptional relation is best described as mystical, though the word has unhappy and unwholesome associations, which cannot attach to the character revealed in the portrait. Whitman was almost aggressively cheerful and rudely healthy. But he was not the less a mystic.[Pg 70] One of the most essentially religious of men, his religion was based upon profound personal experience.
The character of mystical experience seems to vary as widely as does that of individual mystics, but it has certain common features. It is essentially an irruption of some profounder self into the field of consciousness; an irruption which is accompanied by a mysterious but most authoritative133 sense of the fulness, power and permanence of this new life. Consequent upon this life-enhancement, come joy and ecstasy134.
The whole story of the development of consciousness is, as I have said, a process of unfoldings; but there is one critical moment of that process which occurs sometimes after the attainment135 of maturity136, of such infinite significance to the individual that it seems like a revolution rather than a mere4 development in consciousness. It is often described as conversion137. Whitman’s experience was fully as significant and wonder-compelling as any; but momentous138 as it was, its nature compelled him to regard it as a further and crowning step in a long succession of stairs—a culmination139, not a change of direction. With it he came to the top of the slope and looked over, on to the summit, and beheld140 the outstretched world. It was no turning round and going the other way; it was the rewarding achievement of a long and patient climb.
But the simile141 of the mountain-side hardly suffices, for this was a bursting of constraint—a breaking, as well as a surmounting142 of barriers; as though the accumulating waters in some dark and hidden reservoir should so increase in volume that they burst at last through their confining walls of rubble143 and of rock, forcing their way upwards144 in a rush of ecstasy to the universal life and the outer sunshine. This outlet145 of the pent-up floods of emotional experience into another and a vaster sphere of consciousness—this outpouring of the soul from its confinement146 in the darkness to the freedom of the light—results from the slow accumulation of the stores of life, but it has at last its supreme147 hour, its divine instant of liberation.
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In this it has its parallel with the passion of Love. For the inner mysteries of religion and of sex are hardly to be separated. They are different phases of the one supreme passion of immanent, expanding and uniting life; mysterious breakings of barriers, and burstings forth; expressions of a power which seems to augment148 continually with the store of the soul’s experience in this world of sense; experience received and hidden beneath the ground of our consciousness. To feel the passion of Love is to discover something of that mystery breaking, in its orgasm, through the narrow completeness and separate finality of that complacent149 commonplace, which in our ignorance we build so confidently over it, and creating a new life of communion. To feel the passion of religion is to discover more.
The relation of the two passions was so evident to Whitman that we may believe it was suggested to his mind by his own experience. In some lives it would appear that the one passion takes the place of the other, so that the ascetics150 imagine them to be mutually exclusive; but this was certainly not Whitman’s case. Whitman’s mysticism was well-rooted in the life of the senses, and hence its indubitable reality. We have seen that he had had experience of sex-love, and we have found reasons to aver75 that it was of a noble and honourable151 order; we have seen this experience followed by an acute crisis and its determination, or at least its suspension, and change of character.
But in the meantime, the sex-experience had revealed to Whitman the dominance in his nature of those profound emotional depths of which he had always been dimly conscious since the hours on Long Island beach. The whole crisis had made him realise more fully than ever the solemnity and mysterious purpose of life. It had not satisfied him: it had roused in him many perplexities, and had entailed152 what was probably the first great sacrifice of his life. In a word, this obscure and mysterious page in his story prepared him who read it for a further emotional revelation, such as I have been describing.
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This actually came to him one memorable153 midsummer morning[136] as he lay in the fields breathing the lucid154 air. For suddenly the meaning of his life and of his world shone clear within him, and arising, spread an ineffable155 peace, joy and knowledge all about him. The long process of integration was at last completed. He was at one with himself, and at peace. It was the new birth of his soul, and properly speaking, the commencement of his manhood.
Co-incident with self-realisation came the realisation of the universe. He saw and felt that it was all of the same divine stuff as the new-born soul within him; that love ran through it purposefully from end to end; that thought could not fathom156 the suggestions which the least of things was capable of making to its brother the soul; that the very leaves of the grass were inspired with divine spirit as truly as the leaves of any Bible. It was as though something far larger than that which he had hitherto regarded as himself had now become self-conscious in him. He was an enthusiast157 in the literal sense of that mystic word, possessed158 by a god, filled with the divine consciousness. The Spirit is One, and he was in the Spirit. It identified him with the things and objects that hitherto had appeared external to him, and infinitely159 increased his sense of their mysterious beauty. George Fox’s description of his own mystical experience is true, upon the whole, of Whitman’s. He writes: “Now was I come up in spirit through the flaming sword into the Paradise of God. All things were new,[Pg 73] and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter.”[137] When one considers the Quaker reputation for veracity160 and caution, one can hardly doubt that these wonderful words describe a condition of consciousness similar to that of Whitman on the June morning of which we speak.
Fox continues that the nature of things lay so open to him that he was at a stand “whether he should practise physic for the good of mankind”. It was by the subtle sympathy of the Spirit that the first Quaker supposed himself to be familiar with the medicinal virtues161 of herbs, and the same sympathy made Whitman feel that he understood the purpose of their myriad162 lives. The wonder of the universal life was revealed to them both. They partook of the consciousness which pervades163 all matter.
To both men illumination brought a double gift of vision, vision into the nature of the universal purpose—of the spiritual or deeper side of life—and insight into the condition and needs of individuals. But in Fox and Whitman this insight, which seems to predominate rather in observant than in creative types of genius such as theirs, was less prominent than the other vision. They were more largely occupied with the universal than with the individual; and while their words carry the extraordinarily164 intimate message of an appeal to the profoundest element in each soul, their very universality may have rendered them often indifferent to the secondary consciousness or individual self of their hearers. And it is observable that neither of them evinced anything of that dramatic gift which seems to require the predominance of this insight into the secondary self-consciousness. The impersonality166 with which as preacher or poet they made their public appeal, must have made them at times somewhat inaccessible167 in their private lives.
Consciousness, it would seem, is of a double nature, being, as it were, both personal and impersonal165—if we may use these terms of something that seems after all[Pg 74] to be so wholly personal. And hence it appears contradictory168 to itself, and we are forever trying to harmonise it by the sacrifice of one portion to the other. But in reality it is one consciousness with two functions: the first for fellowship and communion, the second for definition and for concrete achievement.
Whitman developed these two functions harmoniously169; he never sacrificed his individual self-consciousness to the cosmic. He was just as positively170 Walt Whitman the man, as he was Walt Whitman the organ of inspiration. I think we may say that in the midst of that mysterious wonder, that extension of himself which took place at the touch of God, Whitman’s own identity, so far from being lost, was deepened and intensified171, so that he knew instinctively172 and beyond a doubt that it was in some sense of the word absolute and imperishable.
Earlier in this chapter we viewed philosophy as the attempt of the Self to apprehend173 the Not-self as a Whole; Whitman’s revelation was, it seems to me, the discovery in himself of the sense which does so apprehend the universe; not as a hypothetical Whole, but as an incarnate174 purpose, a life with which he was able to hold some kind of communion. It was a realisation, not a theory. Whatever this communion may have been, it related him to the universe on its spiritual side by a bond of actual experience. It related him to the ants and the weeds, and it related him more closely still to all men and women the world over. The warmth of family affection was extended to all things, as it had been in the experience of the Nazarene, and of the little poor man of Assisi.
But while his sense of relationship to individuals was thus quickened, the quickening power lay in the realisation of God’s life, and of his own share in it. His realisation of God had come to him through an ardent41 love of individual and concrete things; but now it was that realisation which so wonderfully deepened and impassioned his relation to individuals. What we mean[Pg 75] when we use the word God in public, is necessarily somewhat ambiguous and obscure; but when Whitman used it, as he did but rarely and always with deliberation, he seems to have meant the immanent, conscious Spirit of the Whole.
Theory came second to experience with him, and he was no adept175 at definition: the interest he grew to feel in the Hegelian philosophy and in metaphysics resulted from his longing176, not to convince himself, but to explain himself intelligibly177 to his fellows, and, in so far as it was possible, make plainer to them the meaning of the world and of themselves.
It seems desirable to define his position a little further, though we find ourselves at once in a dilemma178; for at this point it is evident that he was both—or neither—a Christian179 nor a Pagan. He is difficult to place, as indeed we must often feel our own selves to be, for whom the idea of a suffering God is no more completely satisfying than that of Unconscious Impersonal Cosmic Force. Again, while worship was a purely personal matter for him, yet the need of fellowship was so profound that he strove to create something that may not improperly180 be described as a Church, a world-wide fellowship of comrades, through whose devotion the salvation181 of the world should be accomplished182.
In a profound sense, though emphatically not that of the creeds183, Whitman was Christian, because he believed that the supreme Revelation of God is to be sought, not in the external world, but in the soul of man; because he held, though not in the orthodox form, the doctrine184 of Incarnation; because he saw in Love, the Divine Law and the Divine Liberty; and because it was his passionate desire to give his life to the world. In all these things he was Christian, though we can hardly call him “a Christian,” for in respect of all of these he might also be claimed by other world-religions.
As to the Churches, he was not only outside them, but he frankly185 disliked them all, with the exception of the Society of Friends; and even this he probably looked[Pg 76] upon principally as a memory of his childhood, a tradition which conventionality and the action of schismatics had gone far to render inoperative in his Nineteenth Century America. We may say that he was Unitarian in his view of Jesus; but we must add that he regarded humanity as being fully as Divine as the orthodox consider Jesus to be; while his full-blooded religion was very far from the Unitarianism with which he was acquainted;[138] and his faith in humanity exalted186 the passions to a place from which this least emotional of religious bodies is usually the first to exclude them. In fact, he took neither an intellectual nor an ascetic view of religion. He had the supreme sanity187 of holiness in its best and most wholesome123 sense; but whenever it seemed to be applied188 to him in later years he properly disclaimed189 the cognomen190 of saint, less from humility191, though he also was humble192, than because he knew it to be inapplicable. In conventional humility and the other negative virtues, renunciation, remorse193 and self-denial, he saw more evil than good. His message was one rather of self-assertion, than of self-surrender. One regretfully recognises that, for many critics, this alone will be sufficient to place him outside the pale.
Another test would be applied by some, and though it would exclude many besides Whitman, we may refer to it in passing. He was apparently without the sense of mystical relationship, save that of sympathy, with Jesus as a present Saviour-God.[139] But none the less he had communion with the Deity194 whose self-revealing nature is not merely Energy but Purpose. And his God was a God not only of perfect and ineffable purpose, but of all-permeating Love.[140]
Whether his relation to God can be described as prayer, it is perhaps unprofitable to ask. It is better worth while to question whether he was conscious of feeding upon “the bread of life,” for this consciousness is a test of communion. Undoubtedly195 he was; and the[Pg 77] nourishment196 which fed his being came to him as it were through all media. The sacrament of wafer and cup is the symbol of that Immanent Real Presence which is also recognised in the grace before meat. Whitman partook of the sacrament continually, converting all sensation into spiritual substance.
The final test of religions, however, is to be found in their fruits, and the boast of Christianity is its “passion for souls”. Now Whitman is among the great examples of this passion, and his book is one long “personal appeal” addressed, sometimes almost painfully, “to You”.
But, it may be asked, did he aim at “saving souls for Christ”? If I understand this very mystical and obscure question, and its ordinary use, I must answer, No,—but I am not sure of its meaning. Whitman’s own salvation urged him to save men and women by the Love of God for the glory of manhood and of womanhood and for the service of humanity.
Far as this may be from an affirmative reply to the question, the seer who has glimpses of ultimate things will yet recognise Whitman as an evangelical. For he brought good tidings in his very face. He preached Yourself, as God purposed you, and will help and have you to be. Whether this is Paganism or Christianity let us leave the others to decide; sure for ourselves, at least, that it is no cold code of ethical197 precepts198 and impersonal injunctions, but the utterance of a personality become radiant, impassioned and procreative by the potency199 of the divine spirit within.
In stating thus the nature of Whitman’s vision, I do not wish to place it too far out of the field of our common experience. His ordinary consciousness had been touched by it in earlier hours; and some gleam or glimmer200 of it enters every life as an element of romance. But for most of us, only as a light on the waters that passes and is gone, not as in Whitman’s case, and in the case of many another mystic whether Pagan or Christian—for mysticism is far older and more original than the creeds[Pg 78]—as the inward shining and immortal103 light which henceforward becomes for them synonymous with health and wholeness. For most men, the fairy light of childhood becomes a half-forgotten, wholly foolish memory; Romance also we outgrow201, or cling only to its dead corpse202 as to a pretty sentiment. Thus the wonder of our childhood and our youth, so essentially real in itself, fades into the light of common day; it becomes for our unbelief a light that never was on sea or land.
But in Whitman’s story we find it living on, to become transformed in manhood into the soul of all reality. His wonder at the world grew more. And this wonder, always bringing with it, to the man as to the child, a sense of exhilaration and expansion, was at the heart of his religion, as it is doubtless at the heart of all. No one will ever understand Whitman or his influence upon those who come in contact with him, who does not grasp this fact of his unflagging and delighted wonder at life. It kept him young to the end. The high-arched brows over his eyes are its witness.
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1
democrats
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| n.民主主义者，民主人士( democrat的名词复数 ) | |
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buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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symposium
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| n.讨论会，专题报告会；专题论文集 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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epics
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| n.叙事诗( epic的名词复数 )；壮举；惊人之举；史诗般的电影（或书籍） | |
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engulf
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| vt.吞没，吞食 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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rant
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| v.咆哮；怒吼；n.大话；粗野的话 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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recluse
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| n.隐居者 | |
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pessimist
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| n.悲观者；悲观主义者；厌世 | |
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civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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virile
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| adj.男性的；有男性生殖力的；有男子气概的；强有力的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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physicists
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| 物理学家( physicist的名词复数 ) | |
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reverenced
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| v.尊敬，崇敬( reverence的过去式和过去分词 )；敬礼 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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ardently
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| adv.热心地，热烈地 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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isolate
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| vt.使孤立，隔离 | |
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equanimity
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| n.沉着，镇定 | |
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antagonisms
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| 对抗，敌对( antagonism的名词复数 ) | |
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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joint
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| adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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limbo
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| n.地狱的边缘；监狱 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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isthmus
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| n.地峡 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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frantically
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| ad.发狂地, 发疯地 | |
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entice
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| v.诱骗，引诱，怂恿 | |
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relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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miller
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| n.磨坊主 | |
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hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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buffeting
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| 振动 | |
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sluggish
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| adj.懒惰的，迟钝的，无精打采的 | |
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aver
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| v.极力声明；断言；确证 | |
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geographically
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| adv.地理学上，在地理上，地理方面 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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nomad
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| n.游牧部落的人，流浪者，游牧民 | |
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insurgent
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| adj.叛乱的，起事的；n.叛乱分子 | |
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integration
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| n.一体化，联合，结合 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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86
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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penurious
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| adj.贫困的 | |
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incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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WHIMS
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| 虚妄，禅病 | |
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mediate
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| vi.调解，斡旋；vt.经调解解决；经斡旋促成 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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oracle
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| n.神谕，神谕处，预言 | |
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95
kindliness
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| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
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96
benignity
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| n.仁慈 | |
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goodwill
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| n.善意，亲善，信誉，声誉 | |
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stolidity
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| n.迟钝，感觉麻木 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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104
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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105
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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106
joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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107
vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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108
jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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109
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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110
tallied
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| v.计算，清点( tally的过去式和过去分词 )；加标签（或标记）于；（使）符合；（使）吻合 | |
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111
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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112
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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113
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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114
peripatetic
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| adj.漫游的，逍遥派的，巡回的 | |
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115
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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116
scourge
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| n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏 | |
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117
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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118
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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119
provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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120
persuasion
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| n.劝说；说服；持有某种信仰的宗派 | |
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121
demonstrations
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| 证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威 | |
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122
wholesomeness
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| 卫生性 | |
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123
wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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124
outgrew
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| 长[发展] 得超过（某物）的范围( outgrow的过去式 )； 长[发展]得不能再要（某物）； 长得比…快； 生长速度超过 | |
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125
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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126
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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127
potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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128
magnetism
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| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
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129
well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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130
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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131
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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132
petals
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| n.花瓣( petal的名词复数 ) | |
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133
authoritative
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| adj.有权威的，可相信的；命令式的；官方的 | |
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134
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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135
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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136
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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137
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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138
momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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139
culmination
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| n.顶点；最高潮 | |
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140
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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141
simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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142
surmounting
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| 战胜( surmount的现在分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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143
rubble
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| n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾 | |
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144
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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145
outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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146
confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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147
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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148
augment
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| vt.(使)增大，增加，增长，扩张 | |
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149
complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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150
ascetics
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| n.苦行者，禁欲者，禁欲主义者( ascetic的名词复数 ) | |
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151
honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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152
entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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153
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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155
ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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156
fathom
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| v.领悟，彻底了解 | |
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157
enthusiast
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| n.热心人，热衷者 | |
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158
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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159
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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160
veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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161
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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162
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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163
pervades
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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164
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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165
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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166
impersonality
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| n.无人情味 | |
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167
inaccessible
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| adj.达不到的，难接近的 | |
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168
contradictory
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| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
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169
harmoniously
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| 和谐地，调和地 | |
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170
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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171
intensified
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| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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172
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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173
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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174
incarnate
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| adj.化身的，人体化的，肉色的 | |
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175
adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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176
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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177
intelligibly
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| adv.可理解地，明了地，清晰地 | |
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178
dilemma
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| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
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179
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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180
improperly
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| 不正确地，不适当地 | |
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181
salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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182
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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183
creeds
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| （尤指宗教）信条，教条( creed的名词复数 ) | |
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184
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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185
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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186
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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187
sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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188
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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189
disclaimed
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| v.否认( disclaim的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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190
cognomen
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| n.姓；绰号 | |
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191
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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192
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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193
remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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194
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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195
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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196
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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197
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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198
precepts
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| n.规诫，戒律，箴言( precept的名词复数 ) | |
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199
potency
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| n. 效力，潜能 | |
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200
glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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201
outgrow
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| vt.长大得使…不再适用；成长得不再要 | |
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202
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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