reason to show for themselves, are wedded to the established forms and
ratified refinements of poetic art; but it seems reasonable to enlarge the
canon till it includes so great and startling a genius, rather than to draw
it close and exclude him. His work is practically certain to stand as
archetypal for many future poetic efforts--so great is his power as an
originator, so fervid his initiative. It forms incomparably the _largest_
performance of our period in poetry. Victor Hugo's _Legende des Siecles_
alone might be named with it for largeness, and even that with much less of
a new starting-point in conception and treatment. Whitman breaks with all
precedent. To what he himself perceives and knows he has a personal
relation of the intensest kind: to anything in the way of prescription, no
relation at all. But he is saved from isolation by the depth of his
Americanism; with the movement of his predominant nation he is moved. His
comprehension, energy, and tenderness are all extreme, and all inspired by
actualities. And, as for poetic genius, those who, without being ready to
concede that faculty to Whitman, confess his iconoclastic boldness and his
Titanic power of temperament, working in the sphere of poetry, do in effect
confess his genius as well.

Such, still further condensed, was the critical summary which I gave of
Whitman's position among poets. It remains to say something a little more
precise of the particular qualities of his works. And first, not to slur
over defects, I shall extract some sentences from a letter which a friend,
most highly entitled to form and express an opinion on any poetic
question--one, too, who abundantly upholds the greatness of Whitman as a
poet--has addressed to me with regard to the criticism above condensed. His
observations, though severe on this individual point, appear to me not
other than correct. "I don't think that you quite put strength enough into
your blame on one side, while you make at least enough of minor faults or
eccentricities. To me it seems always that Whitman's great flaw is a fault