to shadow forth by comparisons and roundabout approaches. If verbal
logic were sufficient, life would be as plain sailing as a piece of
Euclid. But, as a matter of fact, we make a travesty of the simplest
process of thought when we put it into words; for the words are all
coloured and forsworn, apply inaccurately, and bring with them, from
former uses, ideas of praise and blame that have nothing to do with the
question in hand. So we must always see to it nearly, that we judge by
the realities of life and not by the partial terms that represent them
in man's speech; and at times of choice, we must leave words upon one
side, and act upon those brute convictions, unexpressed and perhaps
inexpressible, which cannot be flourished in an argument, but which are
truly the sum and fruit of our experience. Words are for communication,
not for judgment. This is what every thoughtful man knows for himself,
for only fools and silly schoolmasters push definitions over far into
the domain of conduct; and the majority of women, not learned in these
scholastic refinements, live all-of-a-piece and unconsciously, as a tree
grows, without caring to put a name upon their acts or motives. Hence, a
new difficulty for Whitman's scrupulous and argumentative poet: he must
do more than waken up the sleepers to his words; he must persuade them
to look over the book and at life with their own eyes.

This side of truth is very present to Whitman; it is this that he means
when he tells us that "To glance with an eye confounds the learning of
all times." But he is not unready. He is never weary of descanting on
the undebatable conviction that is forced upon our minds by the presence
of other men, of animals, or of inanimate things. To glance with an eye,
were it only at a chair or a park railing, is by far a more persuasive
process, and brings us to a far more exact conclusion than to read the
works of all the logicians extant. If both, by a large allowance, may be
said to end in certainty, the certainty in the one case transcends the
other to an incalculable degree. If people see a lion, they run away; if
they only apprehend a deduction, they keep wandering around in an
experimental humour. Now, how is the poet to convince like nature, and
not like books? Is there no actual piece of nature that he can show the
man to his face, as he might show him a tree if they were walking
together? Yes, there is one: the man's own thoughts. In fact, if the
poet i