Facing frankly all appearances, all facts, this prophet-poet sounds exultantly the pean of jubilation: All is good, all is beauty, all is health and sanity. I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen, anywhere, at any time, is provided for, in the inherences of things. VI.-The Larger Woman Daughters of the Land, did you wait for your poet? I say an unnumbered new race of hardy and well-defined women are to spread through all These States. I say a girl fit for These States must be free, capable, dauntless, just the same as a boy. In many teach Whitman's thorough-going modernness and adherence to the laws of nature and freedom seem to have no limitations. ers we revel in a progressive outlook until we run full tilt upon some wall of conservatismsome rock of retarded development which checks enthusiasm and puts up the guards of caution. He at times violates our instincts of taste, to many noble sentiments he gives no response, but his shortcomings do not lie in the sterotyped or tradition-bound. He may not see all that there is in the world, but what he sees is always real-never the phantom arbitrarily created by custom or popular opinion. In his attitude toward woman, Whitman well illustrates his prophetic instinct. Writ ing in the middle of the century, he preceded the agitation for woman's educational, industrial, and political opportunities. Yet he took all this for granted and leaped past the transitional, halting stages to an ideal of strength, freedom, human achievement, and matronly supremacy such as another century will under- • stand better than our own. It is not in woman's name that Whitman demands that bars be withdrawn and cages removed. It is in the name of humanity. The race of human creatures are destined to match the majesty of the universe. In humankind, all past evolution finds its culminationall the cosmic order awaits its fruition. The mothers of the race must inaugurate the uplift of the race. The women of the race must live out their full portion of this mighty destiny. Sacrifice, dwarfing, and hampered growth are not necessary anywhere in the order of things-every life may be lived out to the full-must be so fulfilled, if the child of that life is not to be defrauded. In the name of that maternity by which woman's life has been supposed to receive its limitation, the poet proclaims the obliteration of all limits. |