From another point of view Leaves of Grass is avowedly the song of Sex
and Amativeness, and even Animality--though meanings that do not
usually go along with these words are behind all, and will duly
emerge; and all are sought to be lifted into a different light and
atmosphere. Of this feature, intentionally palpable in a few lines, I
shall only say the espousing principle of those lines so gives breath
to my whole scheme that the bulk of the pieces might as well have been
left unwritten were those lines omitted. . . .

Universal as are certain facts and symptoms of communities . . . there
is nothing so rare in modern conventions and poetry as their normal
recognizance. Literature is always calling in the doctor for
consultation and confession, and always giving evasions and swathing
suppressions in place of that 'heroic nudity,' on which only a genuine
diagnosis . . . can be built. And in respect to editions of Leaves of
Grass in time to come (if there should be such) I take occasion now to
confirm those lines with the settled convictions and deliberate
renewals of thirty years, and to hereby prohibit, as far as word of
mine can do so, any elision of them.

But beyond all these notes and moods and motives is the lofty spirit of a
grand and free acceptance of all things that are worthy of existence. He
desired, he says, 'to formulate a poem whose every thought or fact should
directly or indirectly be or connive at an implicit belief in the wisdom,
health, mystery, beauty of every process, every concrete object, every
human or other existence, not only consider'd from the point of view of
all, but of each.' His two final utterances are that 'really great
poetry is always . . . the result of a national spirit, and not the
privilege of a polish'd and select few'; and that 'the strongest and
sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.'

Such are the views contained in the opening essay A Backward Glance O'er
Travel'd Roads, as he calls it; but there are many other essays in this
fascinating volume, some on poets such as Burns and Lord Tennyson, for
whom Walt Whitman has a profound admiration; some on old actors and
singers, the elder Booth, Forrest, Alboni and Mario being his special
favourites; others on the native Indians, on the Spanish element in
American nationality, on Western slang, on the poetry of the Bible, and
on Abraham Lincoln. But Walt Whitman is at his best when he is analysing
his own work and making schemes for the poetry of the future. Literature,
to him, has a distinctly social aim. He seeks to build up the masses by
'building up grand individuals.' And yet literature itself must be
preceded by noble forms of life. 'The best literature is always the
result of something far greater than itself--not the hero but the
portrait of the hero. Before there can be recorded history or poem there
must be the transaction.' Certainly, in Walt Whitman's views there is a
largeness of vision, a healthy sanity and a fine ethical purpose. He is
not to be placed with the professional litterateurs of his country,
Boston novelists, New York poets and the like. He stands apart, and the
chief value of his work is in its prophecy, not in its performance. He
has begun a prelude to larger themes. He is the herald to a new era. As
a man he is the precursor of a fresh type.