parents,
Of city for city and land for land."


The solitude of the most sublime idealist is broken in upon
by other people's faces; he sees a look in their eyes that
corresponds to something in his own heart; there comes a tone
in their voices which convicts him of a startling weakness
for his fellow-creatures. While he is hymning the EGO and
commencing with God and the universe, a woman goes below his
window; and at the turn of her skirt, or the colour of her
eyes, Icarus is recalled from heaven by the run. Love is so
startlingly real that it takes rank upon an equal footing of
reality with the consciousness of personal existence. We are
as heartily persuaded of the identity of those we love as of
our own identity. And so sympathy pairs with self-assertion,
the two gerents of human life on earth; and Whitman's ideal
man must not only be strong, free, and self-reliant in
himself, but his freedom must be bounded and his strength
perfected by the most intimate, eager, and long-suffering
love for others. To some extent this is taking away with the
left hand what has been so generously given with the right.
Morality has been ceremoniously extruded from the door only
to be brought in again by the window. We are told, on one
page, to do as we please; and on the next we are sharply
upbraided for not having done as the author pleases. We are
first assured that we are the finest fellows in the world in
our own right; and then it appears that we are only fine
fellows in so far as we practise a most quixotic code of
morals. The disciple who saw himself in clear ether a moment