CHAPTER III - WALT WHITMAN



OF late years the name of Walt Whitman has been a good deal
bandied about in books and magazines. It has become familiar
both in good and ill repute. His works have been largely
bespattered with praise by his admirers, and cruelly mauled
and mangled by irreverent enemies. Now, whether his poetry
is good or bad as poetry, is a matter that may admit of a
difference of opinion without alienating those who differ.
We could not keep the peace with a man who should put forward
claims to taste and yet depreciate the choruses in SAMSON
AGONISTES; but, I think, we may shake hands with one who sees
no more in Walt Whitman's volume, from a literary point of
view, than a farrago of incompetent essays in a wrong
direction. That may not be at all our own opinion. We may
think that, when a work contains many unforgettable phrases,
it cannot be altogether devoid of literary merit. We may
even see passages of a high poetry here and there among its
eccentric contents. But when all is said, Walt Whitman is
neither a Milton nor a Shakespeare; to appreciate his works
is not a condition necessary to salvation; and I would not
disinherit a son upon the question, nor even think much the
worse of a critic, for I should always have an idea what he
meant.

What Whitman has to say is another affair from how he says
it. It is not possible to acquit any one of defective