Chapter IX

Whitman's democracy is the breath of his nostrils, the light of his eyes, the blood in his veins. The reader does not feel that here is some fine scholar, some fine poet singing the praises of democracy; he feels that here is a democrat, probably, as Thoreau surmised, the greatest the world has yet seen, turning the light of a great love, a great intellect, a great soul, upon America, upon contemporary life and events, and upon the universe, and reading new lessons, new meanings, therein. He is a great poet and prophet, speaking through the average man, speaking as one of the people, and interpreting life from the point of view of absolute democracy.

True, the people in their average taste and perceptions are crude and flippant and superficial, and often the victims of mountebanks and fools; yet, as forming the body of our social and political organism, and the chief factor in the world-problem of to-day, they are the exponents of great forces and laws, and often, in emergencies, show the wisdom and unimpeachableness of Nature herself. Deep-hidden currents and forces in them are liable to come to the surface, and when the politicians get in their way, or miscalculate them, as so often happens, they are crushed. Whitman is a projection into literature of the cosmic sense and conscience of the people, and their participation in the forces that are shaping the world in our century. Much comes to a head in him. Much comes to joyous speech and song, that heretofore had only come to thought and speculation. A towering, audacious personality has appeared which is strictly the fruit of the democratic spirit, and which has voiced itself in an impassioned utterance touching the whole problem of national and individual life.