and our present condition the only right one. Equally far, therefore, am I
from indignantly condemning Whitman for every startling allusion or
expression which he has admitted into his book, and which I, from motives
of policy, have excluded from this selection; except, indeed, that I think
many of his tabooed passages are extremely raw and ugly on the ground of
poetic or literary art, whatever aspect they may bear in morals. I have
been rigid in exclusion, because it appears to me highly desirable that a
fair verdict on Whitman should now be pronounced in England on poetic
grounds alone; and because it was clearly impossible that the book, with
its audacities of topic and of expression included, should run the same
chance of justice, and of circulation through refined minds and hands,
which may possibly be accorded to it after the rejection of all such
peccant poems. As already intimated, I have not in a single instance
excised any _parts_ of poems: to do so would have been, I conceive, no less
wrongful towards the illustrious American than repugnant, and indeed
unendurable, to myself, who aspire to no Bowdlerian honours. The
consequence is, that the reader loses _in toto_ several important poems,
and some extremely fine ones--notably the one previously alluded to, of
quite exceptional value and excellence, entitled _Walt Whitman_. I
sacrifice them grudgingly; and yet willingly, because I believe this to be
the only thing to do with due regard to the one reasonable object which a
selection can subserve--that of paving the way towards the issue and
unprejudiced reception of a complete edition of the poems in England. For
the benefit of misconstructionists, let me add in distinct terms that, in
respect of morals and propriety, I neither admire nor approve the
incriminated passages in Whitman's poems, but, on the contrary, consider
that most of them would be much better away; and, in respect of art, I
doubt whether even one of them deserves to be retained in the exact
phraseology it at present exhibits. This, however, does not amount to
saying that Whitman is a vile man, or a corrupt or corrupting writer; he is