, that his aim was ulterior to that of art, that he was
not begotten by the literary spirit, I only mean that his aim was that of
the largest art, and of the most vital and comprehensive literature. We
should have heard the last of his "Leaves" long ago had they not possessed
unmistakably the vitality of true literature, "incomparable things,
incomparably well said," as Emerson remarked.

A scientific or philosophical work lives independently of its literary
merit, but an emotional and imaginative work lives only by virtue of its
literary merit. Different meanings may be attached to these words
"literary merit" by different persons. I use them as meaning that vital
and imaginative use of language which is the characteristic of all true
literature. The most effective way of saying a thing in the region of the
sentiments and emotions,--that is the true literary way.

HIS RELATION TO LIFE AND MORALS

I

I have divided my subject into many chapters, and given to each a separate
heading, yet I am aware that they are all but slight variations of a
single theme,--viz., Whitman's reliance upon absolute nature. That there
might be no mistake about it, and that his reader might at once be put in
possession of his point of view, the poet declared at the outset of his
career that at every hazard he should let nature speak.

"Creeds and schools in abeyance
Retiring back awhile, sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad,
I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check, with original energy."

The hazard of letting nature speak will, of course, be great,--the hazard
of gross misapprehension on the part of the public, and of hesitancy and
inadequacy on the part of the poet. The latter danger, I think, was safely
passed; Whitman never flinched or wavered for a moment, and that his
criticism is adequate seems to me equally obvious. But the former
contingency--the gross misapprehension of the public, even the wiser
public--has been astounding. He has been read in a narrow, literal,
bourgeois spirit. The personal pronoun, which he uses so freely, has been
taken to stand for the private individual Walt Whitman, so that he has
been looked upon as a compound of egotism and licentiousness. His
character has been traduced, and his purpose in the "Leaves" entirely
misunderstood.

We see at a glance that his attitude towards nature, towards God, towards
the body and the soul, rev