Part 13

And not only did he sweep away the Conservative traditions and conventions of literature, he endeavoured to overthrow the aristocratic principle that underlies it. Selectness he would replace with simplicity. No doubt he went too far. That is of small moment. Exaggeration and over-emphasis have their place in the scheme of things. A thunderstorm may be wanted to clear the air, and if it does incidentally some slight damage to crops and trees it is of no use grumbling.

But in the main Whitman's theory of Art was very true and finely suggestive, and is certainly not the view of a man who cares for nothing but the wild and barbaric.

"The art of Art, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity, nothing can make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness. To carry on the heave of impulse, and pierce intellectual depths, and give all subjects their articulations, are powers neither common nor very uncommon. But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods, and grass by the woodside, is the flawless triumph of Art."

A fitting attitude for a Poet of Democracy, one likely to bring him into direct contact with the broad, variegated stream of human life.

What perhaps he did not realize so clearly is that Nature, no less than Art, exercises the selective facility, and corrects her own riotous extravagance. And thus on occasion he falls into the very indefiniteness, the very excess he deprecates.

The way in which his Art and democratic spirit correspond suggests another, though less unconventional poet of the Democracy--William Morris. The spaciousness the directness, the tolerance that characterise Whitman's work are to be found to Morris. Morris had no eclectic preferences either in Art or Nature. A wall paper, a tapestry, an epic were equally agreeable tasks; and a blade of grass delighted him as fully as a sunset. So with men. He loved many, but no one especially. Catholicity rather than intensity characterised his friendships. And, like Whitman, he could get on cheerfully enough with surprisingly unpleasant people, provided they were working for the cause in which he was interested. {197} That is the secret. Whitman and Morris loved the Cause. They looked at things in the mass, at people in the mass. This is the true democratic spirit. They had no time, nor must it be confessed any special interest--in the individual as such. What I have said about Whitman's affection being comprehensive rather than intense applies equally to Morris. Why? Because it is the way of the Democrat and the Social Reformer. To such the individual suggests a whole class, a class suggests the race. Whitman is always speaking to man as man, rarely does he touch on individual men. If he does so, it is only to pass on to some cosmic thoughts suggested by the particular instance.

Perhaps the most inspiring thing about Whitman's attitude towards humanity is his thorough understanding of the working classes, and his quick discernment of the healthy naturalism that animates them. He neither patronizes them nor idealizes them; he sees their faults, which are obvious enough; but he also sees, what is not so obvious, their fine independence of spirit, their eager thirst for improvement, for ampler knowledge, for larger opportunities, and their latent idealism.

No doubt there is more independence, greater vigour, less servility, in America than in England; but the men he especially delights in, the artisan or mechanic, represent the best of the working classes in either country.

In this respect Whitman and Tolstoy, differing in so many ways, join hands. In the "powerful uneducated person" they see the salvation of society, the renovation of its anaemic life.

IV

Whitman is no moralist, and has no formal philosophy to offer. But the modern spirit which always seeks after some "criticism of life" does not forsake even the Vagabond. He is certainly the only Vagabond, with the exception of Thoreau, who has felt himself charged with a message for his fellows. The popular tendency is to look for a "message" in all literary artists, and the result is that the art in question is knocked sometimes out of all shape in order to wrest from it some creed or ethical teaching. And as the particular message usually happens to be something that especially appeals to the seeker, the number of conflicting messages wrung from the unfortunate literary artist are somewhat disconcerting.

But in Whitman's case the task of the message hunter is quite simple. Whitman never leaves us in doubt what he believes in, and what ideas he wishes to propagate. It is of course easy--perhaps inevitable--that with a writer whose method it is to hint, suggest, indicate, rather than formulate, elaborate, codify, the student should read in more than was intended. And, after all, as George Eliot said, "The words of Genius bear a wider meaning than the thought which prompted them." But at any rate there is no mistaking the general outline of his thought, for his outlook upon life is as distinctive as Browning's, and indeed possesses many points of similarity. But in speaking of Whitman's message one thing must be borne in mind. Whitman's work must not be adjudged merely as a special blend of Altruism and Individualism. No man ever works, it has been well said {199}--not even if philanthropy be his trade--from the primary impulse to help or console other people, any more than his body performs its functions for the sake of other people. And what Professor Nettleship says of Browning might be applied with equal truth to Whitman. His work consists "not in his being a teacher, or even wanting to be one, but in his doing exactly the work he liked best and could not help doing." And Whitman's stimulating thought is not the less true for that, for it is the spontaneous expression of his personality, just as fully as a melody or picture is an expression of an artist's personality. He could no more help being a teacher than he could help breathing. And his teaching must be valued not in accordance with the philosophy of the schools, not by comparison with the ethics of the professional moralist, but as the natural and inevitable outcome of his personality and temperament.

As a panacea for social evils Whitman believes in the remedial power of comradeship in a large-hearted charity.

"You felons on trial in courts, You convicts in prison cells, you sentenced assassins chained and handcuffed with iron, Who am I, too, that I am not on trial or in prison? Me ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chained With iron, or my ankles with iron?"

Mark the watchful impassiveness with which he gazes at the ugly side of life.

"I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame; I hear convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;

* * * * *

I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny; I see martyrs and prisoners-- I observe a famine at sea--I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be killed, to preserve the lives of the rest; I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon labourers, the poor, and upon negroes and the like; All these--all the meanness and agony without end, I sit and look out upon, See, hear, and am silent."

No one is too base, too degraded for Whitman's affection. This is no mere book sentiment with him; and many stories are told of his tenderness and charity towards the "dregs of humanity." That a man is a human being is enough for Whitman. However he may have fallen there is something in him to appeal to. He would have agreed with Browning that--

"Beneath the veriest ash there hides a spark of soul, Which, quickened by Love's breath, may yet pervade the whole O' the grey, and free again be fire; of worth the same Howe'er produced, for great or little flame is flame."

Like Browning, also, Whitman fears lassitude and indifference more than the turmoil of passion. He glories in the elemental. At present he thinks we are too fearful of coarseness and rankness, lay too much stress on refinement. And so he delights in "unrefinement," glories in the woods, air-sweetness, sun-tan, brawn.

"_So long_! I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual bold, And I announce an did age that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation."

Cultured conventions, of which we make so much, distress him. They tend, he argues, to enervation, to a poor imitative, self-conscious art, to an artificial, morbid life.

His curative methods were heroic; but who can say that they were not needed, or that they were mischievous?

Certainly in aiming first of all at sincerity he has attained that noble beauty which is born of strength. Nature, as he saw, was full of vital loveliness by reason of her very power. The average literary artist is always seeking for the loveliness, aiming after beauty of form, without a care whether what he is saying has the ring of sincerity and truth, whether it is in touch with the realities of Nature. And in his super-refinements he misses the beauty that flashes forth from the rough, savage songs of Whitman.

Whitman does not decry culture. But he places first the educative influence of Nature. "The best Culture," he says, "will always be that of the manly and courageous instincts and loving perception, and of self-respect."

No advocate of lawlessness he; the influence of modern sciences informs every line that he has written.

As Mr. Burroughs very justly says: "Whitman's relation to science is fundamental and vital. It is the soil under his feet. He comes into a world from which all childish fear and illusion has been expelled. He exhibits the religious and poetic faculties perfectly adjusted to a scientific, industrial, democratic age, and exhibits them more fervent and buoyant than ever before. We have gained more than we have lost. The world is anew created by science and democracy, and he pronounces it good with the joy and fervour of the old faith."

In this respect Mr. Burroughs thinks that Whitman shared with Tennyson the glory of being one of the two poets in our time who have drawn inspiration from this source. Certainly no poet of our time has made finer use as an artist of scientific facts than the late Laureate.

But Tennyson seems scarcely to have drawn inspiration from science as did Browning, if we look at the thought underlying the verse. On the whole scientific discoveries depressed rather than cheered him, whereas from _Paracelsus_ onwards Browning accepts courageously all the results of modern science, and, as in the case of Whitman, it enlarged his moral and spiritual horizon.

But he was not a philosopher as Browning was; indeed, there is less of the philosopher about Whitman than about any poet of our age. His method is quite opposed to the philosophic. It is instinctive, suggestive, and as full of contradictions as Nature herself. You can no more extract a philosophy from his sweeping utterances than you can from a tramp over the hills.

But, like a tramp over the hills, Whitman fits every reader who accompanies him for a stronger and more courageous outlook. It is not easy to say with Whitman as in the case of many writers: "This line quickened my imagination, that passage unravelled my perplexities." It is the general effect of his writings that exercises such a remarkable tonic influence. Perhaps he has never indicated this cumulative power more happily than in the lines that conclude his "Song of Myself."

"You will hardly know who I am, or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.

"Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged. Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."

Yes; that is Whitman's secret--"Good health." To speak of him as did his biographer, Dr. Bucke, as "perhaps the most advanced nature the world has yet produced," to rank him, as some have done, with the world's greatest moral teachers, beside Jesus and Socrates, seems to me the language of hysterical extravagant. Nay, more, it misses surely the special significant of his genius.

In his religious thought, his artistic feelings, his affections, there is breadth of sympathy, sanity of outlook, but an entire absence of intensity, of depth.

We shall scan his pages vainly for the profound aspiration, the subtle spiritual insight of our greatest religious teachers. In his indifference to form, his insensibility to the noblest music, we shall realize his artistic limitations.

Despite his genial comradeship, the more intimate, the more delicate experiences of friendship are not to be found in his company. Delicacy, light and shade, subtlety, intensity, for these qualities you must not seek Whitman. But that is no reason for neglecting him. The Modern and Ancient world are rich in these other qualities, and the special need of the present day is not intensity so much as sanity, not subtlety so much as breadth.

In one of his clever phrases Mr. Havelock Ellis has described Whitman "as a kind of Titanic Undine." {204} Perhaps it is a good thing for us that he never "found his soul." In an age of morbid self-introspection there is something refreshing in an utterance like this, where he praises the animals because--

"They do not screech and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to GOD."

In a feverish, restless age it is well to feel the presence of that large, passive, tolerant figure. There is healing in the cool, firm touch of his hand; healing in the careless, easy self-confidence of his utterance. He has spoken to us of "the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the great charity of the earth." And he has done this with the rough outspokenness of the elements, with the splendid audacity of Nature herself. Brawn, sun-tan, air-sweetness are things well worth the having, for they mean good health. That is why we welcome the big, genial sanity of Walt Whitman, for he has about him the rankness and sweetness of the Earth.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

(Some of the most noteworthy books and articles dealing with the authors discussed in this volume are indicated below.)

WILLIAM HAZLITT (1778-1830).

_Memoirs_, by William Carew Hazlitt. _Four Generations of a Literary Family_, by W. C. Hazlitt (1897). _William Hazlitt_, by Augustine Birrell. _William Hazlitt_, by Alexander Ireland (Frederick Warne & Co., 1889).

THOMAS DE QUINCEY (1785-1859).

_De Quincey_, by David Masson (Macmillan & Co.). _De Quincey and his Friends_, by James Hogg (1895). _De Quincey_, by H. S. Salt ("Bell's Miniature Series of Great Writers").

GEORGE BORROW (1803-81).

_Life and Letters_ (2 vols.), by Dr. Knapp. Introductions to _Lavengro_ (Frederick Warne & Co.), _The Romany Rye_ (Frederick Warne & Co.), _Wild Wales_ (J. M. Dent & Co.), by Theodore Watts-Dunton. Article in Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_. "Reminiscences of George Borrow" (_Athenaeum_, Sept. 3, 10, 1881).

HENRY D. THOREAU (1817-62).

_Thoreau_, _his Life and Aims_, by H. A. Page (Chatto & Windus). _Thoreau_, by H. S. Salt ("Great Writers Series"). Essays by R. L. Stevenson (_Familiar Studies of Men and Books_), and J. R. Lowell (_My Study Window_).

The best edition of Thoreau's writings is published by the Riverside Press, Cambridge, U.S.A. Some useful volumes of selections are issued by Walter Scott, Limited, with good introductions by Will. H. Dricks. _Walden_, with introduction by Theodore Watts-Dunton (Henry Froude).

R. L. STEVENSON (1850-94).

_Letters of R. L. Stevenson to his Family and Friends_ (2 vols.), by Sidney Colvin, with introduction. _R. L. Stevenson_, by L. Cope Cornford (Blackwood & Son).

RICHARD JEFFERIES (1848-87).

_Eulogy of Richard Jefferies_, by Walter Besant (1888). _Nature in Books_, by P. Anderson Graham (Methuen, 1891). _Richard Jefferies_, by H. S. Salt (Swan Sonnenschein, 1894). _Dictionary of National Biography_. Chambers's _Cyclopedia of English Literature_.

WALT WHITMAN (1819-92).

_Walt Whitman_, by William Clarke (Swan Sonnenschein). Essay by R. L. Stevenson (_Familiar Studies of Men and Books_). _Walt Whitman_: _a Study_, by J. Addington Symonds. _Walt Whitman_, by R. M. Bucke (Philadelphia). _Walt Whitman_, by John Burroughs (Constable). _The New Spirit_ (Essay on Whitman), by Havelock Ellis (Walter Scott). The best edition of _Leaves of Grass_, published by David McKay, Philadelphia.

* * * * *

PLYMOUTH WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS

SOME PRESS APPRECIATIONS of "PERSONAL FORCES IN MODERN LITERATURE"

(NEWMAN--MARTINEAU--HUXLEY--WORDSWORTH--KEATS--ROSSETTI--DICKENS-- HAZLITT--DE QUINCEY)

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

"The agreeable work of a man of taste and many sympathies."--_The Athenaeum_.

"It is delightful to come across a book so careful, to enlightened, and so full of fresh comments."--_The Tribune_.

"A brilliant contribution to critical literature."

_The Clarion_.

"Clever monographs."--_The Outlook_.

"Always suggestive and stimulating."

_The Morning Leader_.

"Mr. Rickett writes capably, sanely, and vividly, with a just perception of the distinctive quality of his subjects and considerable power in presenting them in an interesting and engaging way."--_The Daily News_.

"Mr. Rickett is a sound critic and he has a scholarly acquaintance with his subjects."

"CLAUDIUS CLEAR" in _The British Weekly_.

"An acute, sympathetic, and original critic."

_The Glasgow Herald_.

* * * * *

J. M. DENT & CO. 29 & 30 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.

Footnotes

{0} _The Coming of Love and Other Poems_, by Theodore Watts-Dunton (John Lane).

{21} For an excellent summary of this doctrine, vide _Introduction to Herbert Spencer_, by W. H. Hudson.

{40} _Thomas De Quincey_, by H. S. Salt (Bell's Miniature Biographies).

{48} _De Quincey's Life and Writings_, p. 456, by A. H. Japp, LL.D.

{70} The gypsy word for Antonio.

{71} Devil.

{102} It is a peculiarly American trait. The same thing dominates Whitman. Saxon egotism and Yankee egotism are quite distinctive products.

{106} _Thoreau_, by H. A. Page.

{124a} _Later Essays_.

{124b} Introduction, _The Letters of Robert Lents Stevenson_.

{147} _The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies_ by Walter Besant.

{149} Perhaps even more remarkable is the abnormal state of consciousness described in the "Ancient Sage."

{151a} _Six Systems of Indian Philosophy_, by F. Max Muller.

{151b} Quoted by Professor William James, _Varieties of Religions Experiences_, p. 402.

{153a} _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 427.

{153b} Vide _Richard Jefferies_, by H. S. Salt.

{157a} _The Life of the Fields_, p. 72.

{157b} Curious similarity of thought here with Elia's "popular fallacy," though probably quite uninspired by Lamb. Jefferies was no great reader. It is said that he knew little or nothing of Thoreau.

{173} _Vide_ Introduction to Borrow's _The Romany Rye_, by Theodore Watts-Dunton.

{180} _Familiar Studies of Men and Books_, by R. L. Stevenson.

{186} _Walt Whitman_, a study, by J. A. Symonds.

{188} _Walt Whitman_, by William Clarke, p. 79.

{197} Vide _Life of William Morris_ by J. W. Mackail.

{199} _Robert Browning_: _Essays and Thought_, by John T. Nettleship.

{204} _The New Spirit_, by Havelock Ellis.