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