ating it
to himself, seeking his spiritual identity through its various objects and
experiences, and giving in many direct and indirect ways the meaning and
satisfaction of life. There is much in it that is not poetical in the
popular sense, much that is neutral and negative, and yet is an integral
part of the whole, as is the case in the world we inhabit. If it offends,
it is in a wholesome way, like objects in the open air.

III

Whitman rarely celebrates exceptional characters. He loves the common
humanity, and finds his ideals among the masses. It is not difficult to
reconcile his attraction toward the average man, towards workingmen and
"powerful, uneducated persons," with the ideal of a high excellence,
because he finally rests only upon the most elevated and heroic personal
qualities,--elevated but well grounded in the common and universal.

The types upon which he dwells the most fondly are of the common people.

"I knew a man,
He was a common farmer--he was the father of five sons,
And in them were the fathers of sons--and in them were the fathers of
sons.

"This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the richness and breadth of his manners, the pale
yellow and white of his hair and beard, and the immeasurable
meaning of his black eyes,
These I used to go and visit him to see--he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old--his sons were
massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him--all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance--they loved him with personal love;
He drank water only--the blood showed like scarlet through the
clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher--he sailed his boat himself--he had
a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner--he had fowling-pieces
presented to him by men that loved him;
When he went with his five sons and many grandsons to hunt or fish, you
would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him--you would wish to sit by him
in the boat, that you and he might touch each other."

All the _motifs_ of his work are the near, the vital, the universal;
nothing curious, or subtle, or far-fetched. His working ideas are
democracy, equality, personality, nativity, health, sexuality,
comrad