Democracy! X.- Democracy Near at hand to you a throat is now inflating itself and joyfully singing. My Comrade! For you, to share with me two greatnesses-and a third one, rising inclusive and more resplendent, The greatness of Love and Democracy — and the greatness of Religion. I speak the pass-word primeval - I give the sign of Democracy. In this topic we reach the pivotal point of the enthusiasms of Walt Whitman. Every other element in his thought is in some way related to this principle-the equality and sacred value of every human being and a free life in society based upon this equality and worth. He brings to this thought, as we have seen, a unique appreciation of the individual—an individual to which an eternal past of cosmic evolution has contributed and which will have an eternal future in which to fulfill its destiny. This exaltation of the individual is akin to― indeed, is another aspect of the poet's democracy. Man in his relation to other men-the larger life of all men with each other in a united humanity is a most vital aspect of the life of the individual. Indeed, the one and the many are of co-equal importance in these poems-each is cause, each is effect. A noble individual is necessary to a noble society, but a noble, equalized fraternity in society is essential to the rounded man or woman. Whitman's passion of passions is his adoration of America, but it is because it is to him the incarnation of this dual supremacy-the embodiment of the sacred mass made up of sacred, vital units. The main shapes arise! Shapes of Democracy total, result of centuries, Shapes of turbulent, manly cities, Shapes of the friends and home-givers of the whole earth, Shapes bracing the earth and braced with the whole earth. This democracy is of every sort—political, social, moral. We have already seen how complete is his sense of comradeship even with the moral outcast, and social democracy breathes in every expression of character ideal. Indeed, the tremendous force of his universal sympathy lies in that atmosphere of democracy which he gives to every sentiment he utters, whatever the subject. There remains to be specifically noted his attitude toward political democracy. A government in which laws and officials are minimized and always directly subservient to the,' will of the people is the only form of social organization which Whitman can tolerate except as an evolutionary stepping stone. He would rejoice in the time when laws had become unnecessary through the fraternal development of humanity. The greatest city is one Where the men and women think lightly of the laws, Where the slave ceases, and the master of the slave ceases, Where the populace rise at once against the neverending audacity of elected persons, Where fierce men and women pour forth, as the sea to the whistle of death pours its sweeping and unript waves, Where outside authority enters always after precedence of inside authority, Where the citizen is always the head and the idealand President, Mayor, Governor, and what not, are agents for pay Where children are taught to be laws to themselves and depend on themselves. Whitman feels it a supreme duty to urge this self-assertion at the expense of outgrown law and insidious shackles. It is his "to promulgate liberty; to cheer up slaves and horrify despots; to build for that which builds for mankind; to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes; to justify science and the march of equality, and to feed the blood of the brawn-beloved of time." The following are stanzas from a poem to "A Foiled European Revolutionaire": Courage yet, my brother or my sister! Keep on — Liberty is to be subserved whatever occurs; That is nothing that is quelled by one or two failures, or any number of failures, Or by the indifference or ingratitude of the people, or by any unfaithfulness, Or the show of the tushes of power, soldiers, cannon, penal statutes. What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents, Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement, Waiting patiently, waiting its time. When liberty goes out of a place it is not the first to go, nor the second or third to go, It waits for all the rest to go; it is the last. When there are no more memories of heroes and martyrs, And when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth, |