selves under the sun, and in the way they
confronted America and the present time, that convinced beyond the power
of logic or criticism.

The more I saw of Whitman, and the more I studied his "Leaves," the more
significance I found in both, and the clearer it became to me that a new
type of a man and a new departure in poetic literature were here
foreshadowed. There was something forbidding, but there was something
vital and grand back of it. I found to be true what the poet said of
himself,--

"Bearded, sunburnt, gray-neck'd, forbidding, I have arrived,
To be wrestled with as I pass for the solid prizes of the universe,
For such I afford whoever can persevere to win them,"--

I have persevered in my study of the poet, though balked many times, and
the effect upon my own mental and spiritual nature has been great; no such
"solid prizes" in the way of a broader outlook upon life and nature, and,
I may say, upon art, has any poet of my time afforded me. There are
passages or whole poems in the "Leaves" which I do not yet understand
("Sleep-Chasings" is one of them), though the language is as clear as
daylight; they are simply too subtle or elusive for me; but my confidence
in the logical soundness of the book is so complete that I do not trouble
myself at all about these things.

III

I would fain make these introductory remarks to my essay a sort of window
through which the reader may get a fairly good view of what lies beyond.
If he does not here get any glimpse or suggestion of what pleases him, or
of what he is looking for, it will hardly be worth while for him to
trouble himself further.

A great many readers, perhaps three fourths of the readers of current
poetry, and not a few of the writers thereof, cannot stand Whitman at all,
or see any reason for his being. To such my essay, if it ever comes to
their notice, will be a curiosity, may be an offense. But I trust it will
meet with a different reception at the hands of the smaller but rapidly
growing circle of those who are beginning to turn to Whitman as the most
imposing and significant figure in our literary annals.

The rapidly growing Whitman literature attests the increasing interest to
which I refer. Indeed, it seems likely that by the end of the century the
literature which will have grown up around the name of this man will
surpass in bulk and value that which has grown up around the name of any
other man of letters born within the century.