aken the trouble to write prose * * * and one thing
is certain, that no one can appreciate Whitman's excellences
until he has grown accustomed to his faults."

Indicating the attitude of his partisans, John Burroughs' summing up
is fairly representative:

"Just as ripe, mellowed, storied, ivy-towered, velvet-turfed
England lies back of Tennyson, and is vocal through him; just
as canny, covenanting, conscience-burdened, craggy,
sharp-tongued Scotland lies back of Carlyle; just as thrifty,
well-schooled, well-housed, prudent and moral New England lies
back of her group of poets, and is voiced by them--so America
as a whole, our turbulent democracy, our self-glorification,
our faith in the future, our huge mass-movements, our
continental spirit, our sprawling, sublime and unkempt nature
lie back of Whitman, and are implied by his work."

It is not the purpose of this book to interpret Whitman either as a
prophet or a poet, except inferentially as the words of his critics
may carry distinct impressions. After all, the justest estimate of
Whitman and his book is his own. Whitman's puzzling characteristics
are best understood if we realize that Leaves of Grass is an
autobiography--and an extraordinarily candid one--of a man whose
peculiar temperament found expression in prose-verse. His gentleness,
his brusqueness, his egotism, his humility, his grossness, his finer
nature, his crudeness, his eloquence, are all here. To him they were
the attributes of all mankind.

"I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise;
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff'd with the stuff that is coarse, and stuff'd with the
stuff that is fine."

In his virile young manhood he announced with gusto: "I sound my
barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

In his serene old age he said: "Over the tree-tops I float thee a
song."

And this was his conclusion: "I call to the world to distrust the
accounts of my friends, but listen to my enemies as I myself do. I
charge you forever reject those who would expound me, for I cannot
expound myself."

Whoso challenges Whitman's gift of song may not at any rate deny to
him the note of melody. This quality is strong in his titles
particularly:

Rise O days from your fathomless deeps.
In cabin'd ships at sea.
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking