When Mr. Stedman wrote his essay upon the poet early in the eighties, he
referred to the mass of this literature. It has probably more than doubled
in volume in the intervening years: since Whitman's death in the spring of
'92, it has been added to by William Clark's book upon the poet, Professor
Trigg's study of Browning and Whitman, and the work of that accomplished
critic and scholar, so lately gone to his rest, John Addington Symonds.
This last is undoubtedly the most notable contribution that has yet been
made, or is likely very soon to be made, to the Whitman literature. Mr.
Symonds declares that "Leaves of Grass," which he first read at the age of
twenty-five, influenced him more than any other book has done, except the
Bible,--more than Plato, more than Goethe.

When we remember that the man who made this statement was eminently a man
of books, deeply read in all literatures, his testimony may well offset
that of a score of our home critics who find nothing worthy or helpful in
Whitman's work. One positive witness in such a matter outweighs any number
of negative ones.

IV

For making another addition to the growing Whitman literature, I have no
apology to offer. I know well enough that "writing and talk" cannot
"prove" a poet; that he must be his own proof or be forgotten; and my main
purpose in writing about Whitman, as in writing about nature, is to tell
readers what I have found there, with the hope of inducing them to look
for themselves. At the same time, I may say that I think no modern poet so
much needs to be surrounded by an atmosphere of comment and
interpretation, through which readers may approach him, as does Whitman.
His work sprang from a habit or attitude of mind quite foreign to that
with which current literature makes us familiar,--so germinal is it, and
so little is it beholden to the formal art we so assiduously cultivate.
The poet says his work "connects lovingly with precedents," but it does
not connect lovingly with any body of poetry of this century. "Leaves of
Grass" is bound to be a shock to the timid and pampered taste of the
majority of current readers. I would fain lessen this shock by interposing
my own pages of comment between the book and the public. The critic can
say so many things the poet cannot. He can explain and qualify and
analyze, whereas the creative artist can only hint or project. The poet
must hasten on, he must infold and bind together, he must be direct and