79

HELPFUL HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. 81

Envelope Pigeon-holes. 81

LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS. 81

NEWS AND NOTES. 82

WALT WHITMAN IN EUROPE.

With the death and burial of Walt Whitman passes away the most
picturesque figure of contemporary literature.

It is true that in England the name of the poet is more familiar than
his poetry, and that students of literature are more conversant with the
nature of his writings than are the mass of general readers; yet the
character of the man and the spirit of his compositions were rapidly
beginning to be appreciated by, and to sway an influence over, the whole
higher intelligence of the country.

Considering the man and his works, it is almost surprising to find how
easily he did conquer for himself an audience, and even admirers, in
England. He was _par excellence_ a contemporary American. Not that
American who clings to the Puritanic traditions of his English
ancestors, but that characteristic product of the New World who looks
more with eagerness to the future than with satisfaction on the past,
and whose pre-eminent optimism is inspired by his ardent appreciation of
the living present. Walt Whitman stood forth as an innovator into such
realms, where the rigor of conditions demanded an abstract compliance
with rules which were based on absolute truths, and where a swerving
from them was evidence of impotence. His unconventional forms, the
rhymeless rhythm of his verses, which, in appearance, resembled more a
careless prosody than a delicately attuned poesy,--this alone was enough
to provoke, at first, an incredulous smile, even among those whose
tastes were endowed with more penetration. But Walt Whitman stood forth,
besides, as the representative of a principle which, as yet, is looked
upon with suspicion by the old world,--of the principle of a broad,
grand, all-embracing democracy, which elevates manhood above all forms,
all conditions, and all limitations.

The question where metre comes in in poetry, whether it is simply a
means of accentuating rhythm, and is not the rhythm itself, and whether
it is legitimate to do as Whitman did, to prolong the rhythmic phrase at
the expense of metre, until the sense is completed,--all this was a
problem for the professors and the critics