ew meanings, therein. He is a great
poet and prophet, speaking through the average man, speaking as one of the
people, and interpreting life from the point of view of absolute
democracy.

True, the people in their average taste and perceptions are crude and
flippant and superficial, and often the victims of mountebanks and fools;
yet, as forming the body of our social and political organism, and the
chief factor in the world-problem of to-day, they are the exponents of
great forces and laws, and often, in emergencies, show the wisdom and
unimpeachableness of Nature herself. Deep-hidden currents and forces in
them are liable to come to the surface, and when the politicians get in
their way, or miscalculate them, as so often happens, they are crushed.
Whitman is a projection into literature of the cosmic sense and conscience
of the people, and their participation in the forces that are shaping the
world in our century. Much comes to a head in him. Much comes to joyous
speech and song, that heretofore had only come to thought and speculation.
A towering, audacious personality has appeared which is strictly the fruit
of the democratic spirit, and which has voiced itself in an impassioned
utterance touching the whole problem of national and individual life.

X

The Whitman literature is democratic, not in the sense that it caters to
the taste of the masses or to the taste of the average man; for, as a
matter of fact, the masses and the average man are likely to be the last
to recognize its value. The common people, the average newspaper-reading
citizens, are much more likely to be drawn by the artificial and the
conventional. But it is democratic because it is filled with the spirit of
absolute human equality and brotherhood, and gives out the atmosphere of
the universal, primary, human traits. The social, artificial, accidental
distinctions of wealth, culture, position, etc., have not influenced the
poet in the slightest degree. Whitman finds his joy and his triumph, not
in being better than other people or above them, but in being one with
them, and sharing their sins as well as their virtues.

"As if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as
myself--as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that
others possess the same."

This is one step further than others have taken, and makes democracy
complete in itself. Again, his work identifies itself with the democratic
ideal in