"There is no object so soft," he says somewhere in his big,
plain way, "there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the
wheel'd universe." Rightly understood, it is on the softest of all
objects, the sympathetic heart, that the wheel of society turns easily
and securely as on a perfect axle. There is no room, of course, for
doubt or discussion, about conduct, where every one is to follow the
law of his being with exact compliance. Whitman hates doubt, deprecates
discussion, and discourages to his utmost the craving, carping
sensibilities of the conscience. We are to imitate, to use one of his
absurd and happy phrases, "the satisfaction and aplomb of animals." If
he preaches a sort of ranting Christianity in morals, a fit consequent
to the ranting optimism of his cosmology, it is because he declares it
to be the original deliverance of the human heart; or at least, for he
would be honestly historical in method, of the human heart as at present
Christianised. His is a morality without a prohibition; his policy is
one of encouragement all round. A man must be a born hero to come up to
Whitman's standard in the practice of any of the positive virtues; but
of a negative virtue, such as temperance or chastity, he has so little
to say, that the reader need not be surprised if he drops a word or two
upon the other side. He would lay down nothing that would be a clog; he
would prescribe nothing that cannot be done ruddily, in a heat. The
great point is to get people under way. To the faithful Whitmanite this
would be justified by the belief that God made all, and that all was
good; the prophet, in this doctrine, has only to cry "Tally-ho," and
mankind will break into a gallop on the road to El Dorado. Perhaps, to
another class of minds, it may look like the result of the somewhat
cynical reflection that you will not make a kind man out of one who is
unkind by any precepts under heaven; tempered by the belief that, in
natural circumstances, the large majority is well disposed. Thence it
would follow, that if you can only get every one to feel more warmly and
act more courageously, the balance of results will be for good. So far, you see, the doctrine is pretty coherent as a doctrine; as a
picture of man's life it is incomplete and misleading, although
eminently cheerful. This he is himself the first to acknowledge; for if
he is prophetic in anything, it is in his noble disregard of
consistency. "Do I contradict myself?" he asks somewhere; and then pat
comes the answer, the best answer ever given in print, worthy of a sage,
or rather of a woman: "Very well, then, I contradict myself!" with this
addition, not so feminine and perhaps not altogether so satisfactory: "I
am large--I contain multitudes." Life, as a matter of fact, partakes
largely of the nature of tragedy. The gospel according to Whitman, even
if it be not so logical, has this advantage over the gospel according to
Pangloss, that it does not utterly disregard the existence of temporal
evil. Whitman accepts the fact of disease and wretchedness like an
honest man; and instead of trying to qualify it in the interest of his
optimism, sets himself to spur people up to be helpful. He expresses a
conviction, indeed, that all will be made up to the victims in the end;
that "what is untried and afterward" will fail no one, not even "the old
man who has lived without purpose and feels it with bitterness worse
than gall." But this is not to palliate our sense of what is hard or
melancholy in the present. Pangloss, smarting under one of the worst
things that ever was supposed to come from America, consoled himself
with the reflection that it was the price we have to pay for cochineal. And with that murderous parody, logical optimism and the praises of the
best of possible worlds went irrevocably out of season, and have been no
more heard of in the mouths of reasonable men. Whitman spares us all
allusions to the cochineal; he treats evil and sorrow in a spirit almost
as of welcome; as an old sea-dog might have welcomed the sight of the
enemy's topsails off the Spanish Main. There, at least, he seems to say,
is something obvious to be done. I do not know many better things in
literature than the brief pictures--brief and vivid like things seen by
lightning,--with which he tries to stir up the world's heart upon the
side of mercy. He braces us, on the one hand, with examples of heroic
duty and helpfulness; on the other, he touches us with pitiful instances
of people needing help. He knows how to make the heart beat at a brave
story; to inflame us with just resentment over the hunted slave; to stop
our mouths for shame when he tells of the drunken prostitute. For all
the afflicted, all the weak, all the wicked, a good word is said in a
spirit which I can only call one of ultra Christianity; and however
wild, however contradictory, it may be in parts, this at least may be
said for his book, as it may be said of the Christian Gospels, that no
one will read it, however respectable, but he gets a knock upon his
conscience; no one however fallen, but he finds a kindly and supporting
welcome. IV

Nor has he been content with merely blowing the trumpet for the battle
of well-doing; he has given to his precepts the authority of his own
brave example. Naturally a grave, believing man, with little or no sense
of humour, he has succeeded as well in life as in his printed
performances. The spirit that was in him has come forth most eloquently
in his actions. Many who have only read his poetry have been tempted to
set him down as an ass, or even as a charlatan; but I never met any one
who had known him personally who did not profess a solid affection and
respect for the man's character. He practises as he professes; he feels
deeply that Christian love for all men, that toleration, that cheerful
delight in serving others, which he often celebrates in literature with
a doubtful measure of success. And perhaps, out of all his writings, the
best and the most human and convincing passages are to be found in
"these soil'd and creased little livraisons, each composed of a sheet or
two of paper, folded small to carry in the pocket, and fastened with a
pin," which he scribbled during the war by the bedsides of the wounded
or in the excitement of great events. They are hardly literature in the
formal meaning of the word; he has left his jottings for the most part
as he made them; a homely detail, a word from the lips of a dying
soldier, a business memorandum, the copy of a letter--short,
straightforward to the point, with none of the trappings of composition;
but they breathe a profound sentiment, they give us a vivid look at one
of the sides of life, and they make us acquainted with a man whom it is
an honour to love. Whitman's intense Americanism, his unlimited belief in the future of
These States (as, with reverential capitals, he loves to call them),
made the war a period of great trial to his soul.