Walt Whitman Part 4

The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible--he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, is nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound of the distant bell--two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful for--nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they soften with their tears--nothing. And yet as you look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for--that they have life, love, and hope--and so the distant bell makes music in their simple hearts.

IX.

The att.i.tude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood.

Towards all forms of worship, towards all creeds, he has maintained the att.i.tude of absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has given her last message to man. He does not believe that all has been ascertained. He denies that any sect has written down the entire truth. He believes in progress, and, so believing, he says:

We consider bibles and religions divine--I do not say they are not divine, I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still, It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life.

His [the poet's] thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things, In the dispute on G.o.d and eternity he is silent.

Have you thought there could be but a single supreme?

There can be any number of supremes--one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another.

Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the serenity of a great and well-poised soul.

No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about G.o.d and about death.

I hear and behold G.o.d in every object, yet understand G.o.d not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself....

In the faces of men and women I see G.o.d, and in my own face in the gla.s.s, I find letters from G.o.d dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by G.o.d's name.

The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes:

Not objecting to special revelations--considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation.

The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this lack in that which has been written and preached, Whitman says:

Magnifying and applying come I, Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters, Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah, Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his grandson, Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha, In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf, the crucifix engraved, With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitli, and every idol and image, Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cent more.

Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends his hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is wrinkled and old and has a long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks--on stupidity--and fear. Neither does he reject or accept the new because it is new. He wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows just who and what they are.

X.

PHILOSOPHY.

Walt Whitman is a philosopher.

The more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has traveled intellectually, the less certain he is. Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him.

A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one day, that an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was heard to remark: "Who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our home?"

Walt Whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to fathom the mystery of being; and he said:

I too but signify at the utmost a little wash'd-up drift, A few sands and dead leaves to gather, Gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and drift * * * * *

Aware now that amid all that blab whose echoes recoil upon me I have not once had the least idea who or what I am, But that before all my arrogant poems the real Me stands yet untouch'd, untold, altogether unreach'd, Withdrawn far, mocking me with mock-congratulatory signs and bows, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written, Pointing in silence to these songs, and then to the sand beneath....

I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single object, and that no man ever can.

There is in our language no profounder poem than the one ent.i.tled "Elemental Drifts."

The effort to find the origin has ever been, and will forever be, fruitless. Those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a man looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick enough he could grasp the image that he sees behind the gla.s.s.

The latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows:

"To me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape and life here somehow giving an important, perhaps the main, outline to something further. Somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands behind it, is inside of all facts, and the concrete and material, and the worldly affairs of life and sense. That is the purport and meaning behind all the other meanings of LEAVES OF GRa.s.s."

As a matter of fact, the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the grasp of the human mind. We can see a certain distance; beyond that, everything is indistinct; and beyond the indistinct is the unseen. In the presence of these mysteries--and everything is a mystery so far as origin, destiny, and nature are concerned--the intelligent, honest man is compelled to say, "I do not know."

In the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever--and from the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light--a few momentary sparks.

Some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything is matter; and again, others have maintained that a part is matter and a part is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others that matter was first and spirit after; and others that matter and spirit have existed together.

But none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter.

The materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; and the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling.

These spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, matter is quite a mystery. You take in your hand a little earth--a little dust. Do you know what it is? In this dust you put a seed; the rain falls upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts into blossom; it produces fruit.

What is this dust--this womb? Do you understand it? Is there anything in the wide universe more wonderful than this?

Take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate its every part for days, and it remains the citadel of a secret--an impregnable fortress.

Bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in serried ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts and arms of thought and force. The citadel does not fall. Over the battlements floats the flag, and the victorious secret smiles at the baffled hosts.

Walt Whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the limit--the end of the road traveled by the human race. He knows that every victory over nature is but the preparation for another battle.

This truth was in his mind when he said: "Understand me well; it is provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary."

This is the generalization of all history.

XI.

THE TWO POEMS.

There are two of these poems to which I have time to call special attention. The first is ent.i.tled, "A Word Out of the Sea."

The boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of briers and blackberries--from the memories of birds--from the thousand responses of his heart--goes back to the sea and his childhood, and sings a reminiscence.

Two guests from Alabama--two birds--build their nest, and there were four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for joy: