The Cecil Whig., 1885-12-19
S"ai's 4" literature and 8''s''p'p.
An Original WING Feature
WHITMAN TO-DAY.

est hards. When q friend aud myself
tapped on the door of the good, gray
poet of Camden-Walt Whitman-Sat-
urday last stream of the gladdest sun
shine imaginable poured through the
bare and rattIing branches of the old
maple that does patrol duty in front of
the poets home and glistened through
the windows and upon walls and floor in
joyial, CHEEKY way, which seemed
echoed in the venerable prophets voice
had not, like my friend, called to see
the Intrinsic details and arrangements of
the poets chamber; had | had that pur-
| pose i'll lew, ! might entertain you here
for hours with minute and exhaustive
| description of the apartment and its con-
| tents. | had como to see, however, only
the grand old man, and to hear him ut
| ter those soulful words of wisdom that
are embodied IN every sentence native
| upon his lips. 1t was the sunshine of
the poet that made the outer sunshine OF
the sky seem so bright. The soul of
every true bard sparkles in his eyes and
upon his lips when the instincts of that
soul are employed in the actions and
| speeches o: the moment. Such was at
| the time of our visit, and ever has been
the case with Walt Whitman. Having
seen him upon an average of twice every
! week for the past two years, | cannot
| fail to mark this continual presence of
the soul in the person of the man. Upon
the day in question the magnificent form
of Whitman reclined IN his arm chair by
the window of the modest little home,
over the back of the chair being thrown
a gray wolf skin robe, the quality and
color of the hair of which matched that
of the poet to tie very finest point of re-
semblance. We were lucky to strike Mr..
| Whitman when he was in the mood
poetic, if it had not been SO we would
have missed the Sublime conversation to
which we listened with such deep inter-
| est.
rue Walt Whitns- # t0dav rs nor
# have ever known him To be. The ste
of advancing years has approached hil
! with punctual strides, and the measur
of his life is rapidly filling up. But tc
: day, as certainly prophetic of to-morro'
h and of all time, he stands forth the pei
If feet embodiment of the chosen poet. H
e has made the times, the times have nc
s made him. He has predicted America
it is a pity he cannot be numbere
among the future generations that wi
y witness the Divine iulfillment of hi
S prophecy. AS he has said of America
n so must we say of him, the present doe
+ not hold him; only the future can d
that. But for all the purposes of th
& great bard, the true poet and the in
spired philosopher, the Walt Whitman
of today is sufficient. The accreticn
+ of the past ten years have been of man
S fold Importance to him. II, is gaining
readers. The young men Of the countr.
# can encompass him better than thei
). fathers before them could. Those tC
y, whom he has spoken are now for the frs
= time beginning to hear him. 1t will no
{ be long before the voice of accamatiol
will burst forth. Already styled th
t Poet par excellence" what future cog
nomen may arise from the popular ia
voritism of his name it would be Difficult
to estimate. The Walt Whitman of to
day is still the active, earnest poet an(
: thinker that went down to the battle
field i'll '63 and that published the last
completed volume of IL 'aves of Grass
in 1852. That work is not the monu
ment of the man; he himself is thu
monument. No structures, no rules, nc
limits are his. Naturally and spontane
ously, he is the man Walt Whitman; no,
so incoherent, after all when We look al
him in this light, and not so hard to &C
cept and compre bend. "lIe is vulgar"
is the popular verdict of the ignorant
: Only vulgar to those who are personally
tainted with impurty He is only sen
suous as nature is sensuous. He is never
ldSCiNlous, tHe ldCI VI Ills hoSiloSlIy pro-
hibits lasciviousness. Those Judges who
have pronounced him impure are such as
would not look well in the sun
light. They are men who seek the
shadows to hide an imperiection which
the light of day would reveal Walt
Whitman is the subtlest exponent of
sunshine. ii body is perfumed with it;
the aureole of his brow is lit by the sun
shine of the gsds. He hides i'll shame
from nothing. He knows purity equally
as he knows impnrity. He has judged
between them. and chosen an emoodi-
ment OF both that he might become an
average modern man" The true poet
does not aspire to height beyond the
average. Walt Whitman does not be
| lieve in the identity CT the plays and
sonnetts of Shakespeare because of their
intense egotism. He fathers the idea
that none but the widest of bards-the
! Hugos and Keats the Byrous and Swine
| burnes-thought of what was to come
after them. 1t is not pleasant. he thinks,
to be anything in literature but ths God
driven exponent of the God-given soul
within. Nature, the conservative, is
soul; man, the conservative, must be
soul also, Not in the light of hero
worship (Whitman lodges the creeds of
Carlyle), but in another impenetrable
light. which have yet failed to compre-
bend, but whose substance is attainable,
ne views man as god. Why is not this
a correst vieg? Why should it be termed
infidelic? Why should its expounders be
cXcommunicated from the pulpit and
parlol? Tne end of man, shaped by the |
unseen Divinity, is one of perfection.
He must meet God on the plane of God,
or forfeit Immortality. TO do this, man
must be god. He cannot otherwise |
avoid it, when the constitutional eles !
ments of soul are filed with God. Man |
ungodly, is man without soul Whitman |
is the poet only Of the man with soul, |
He does not labor for the little animal |
that refuses all aud accepts nothing. In |
the powerful capacity of his own mind |
he accepts and assimilates everything.
The drift of the tide of life is towards
him. and he does not seek to dam it. He |
bullets with it with strength of body
and intellect; he gets from it what he
can, and allows it to get ali from him it