nually before the writer of critical studies: that he has to
meditate between the author whom he loves and the public who are
certainly indifferent and frequently averse. Many articles had been
written on this notable man. One after another had leaned, in my eyes,
either to praise or blame unduly. In the last case, they helped to
blindfold our fastidious public to an inspiring writer; in the other, by
an excess of unadulterated praise, they moved the more candid to revolt.
I was here on the horns of a dilemma; and between these horns I squeezed
myself, with perhaps some loss to the substance of the paper. Seeing so
much in Whitman that was merely ridiculous, as well as so much more that
was unsurpassed in force and fitness,--seeing the true prophet doubled,
as I thought, in places with the Bull in a China Shop,--it appeared best
to steer a middle course, and to laugh with the scorners when I thought
they had any excuse, while I made haste to rejoice with the rejoicers
over what is imperishably good, lovely, human, or divine, in his
extraordinary poems. That was perhaps the right road; yet I cannot help
feeling that in this attempt to trim my sails between an author whom I
love and honour and a public too averse to recognise his merit, I have
been led into a tone unbecoming from one of my stature to one of
Whitman's. But the good and the great man will go on his way not vexed
with my little shafts of merriment. He, first of any one, will
understand how, in the attempt to explain him credibly to Mrs. Grundy, I
have been led into certain airs of the man of the world, which are
merely ridiculous in me, and were not intentionally discourteous to
himself. But there is a worse side to the question; for in my eagerness
to be all things to all men, I am afraid I may have sinned against
proportion. It will be enough to say here that Whitman's faults are few
and unimportant when they are set beside his surprising merits. I had
written another paper full of gratitude for the help that had been given
me in my life, full of enthusiasm for the intrinsic merit of the poems,
and conceived in the noisiest extreme of youthful eloquence. The present
study was a rifacimento. From it, with the design already mentioned, and
in a fit of horror at my old excess, the big words and emphatic passages
were ruthlessly excised. But this sort of prudence is frequently its
own punishment; along with the exaggeration, some of the truth is
sacrificed; and