II • The Afterglow of the Enlightenment—Walt Whitman
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Parrington, Vernon Louis
Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and bards,
Where the city stands that is belov’d by these, and loves them in return and understands them.
Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and deeds,
Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place,
Where the men and women think lightly of the laws,
Where the slave ceases and the master of slaves ceases,
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons,
Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside authority.
Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President, Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay,
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves.
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,
Where the city of faithfulest friends stands,
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,
There the great city stands.[43]
Individualism, solidarity—on such strong bases he erected his ideal democracy, and the heaven-reaching temple will be overlaid with the rich arts and graces of a civilization worthy at last of the name. Such was the Enlightenment as it came to flower in the passionate idealism of Walt Whitman—a dream that was mocked and flouted and nullified by the Drews and Fisks and Goulds—the “hoggish, cheating, bedbug qualities” of a generation that scorned him for a beast. Even his stout faith was shaken at times by the infidelities of the Gilded Age. He was troubled by the gap that opened between the free individual and the perfect State. “I seem to be reaching for a new politics—for a new economy,” he confessed in 1888; “I don’t quite know what, but for something.”[44] Although he protested, “The older I grow ... the more I am confirmed in my optimism, my democracy,” he projected his hopes farther into the future. He sympathized with the socialists but he was not one of them. His revolutionary ardor abated and he preferred in later years to call himself an evolutionist.[45] “Be radical—be radical,” he said to Traubel, “be not too damned radical.”[46] With his catholic sympathies that refused all bitterness he could not be a partisan—“after the best the partisan will say something better will be said by the man.”[47]
So in the twilight of the romantic revolution Whitman quietly slipped away. The great hopes on which he fed have been belied by after events—so his critics say;[48] as the great hopes of the Enlightenment have been belied. Certainly in this welter of today, with science become the drab and slut of war and industrialism, with sterile money-slaves instead of men, Whitman’s expansive hopes seem grotesque enough. Democracy may indeed be only a euphemism for the rulership of fools. Yet in a time of huge infidelities, in the dun breakdown and disintegration of all faiths, it is not wholly useless to recall the large proportions of Walt Whitman, his tenderness, his heartiness, his faith, his hope. There was in him no weak evasion, no sniveling over the shards of the goodly vessel broken at the well, but even when “old, alone, sick, weak-down, melted-worn with sweat,” a free and joyous acceptance of life.
Thanks in old age—thanks ere I go,
For health, the midday sun, the impalpable air—for life, mere life,
For all my days—not those of peace alone—the days of war the same,
For gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign lands.
For shelter, wine and meat—for sweet appreciation,
For beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books—for colors, forms,
For all the brave strong men—devoted, hardy, men—who’ve forward sprung in freedom’s help, all years, all lands,
For braver, stronger, more devoted men—(a special laurel ere I go, to life’s war’s chosen ones,
The cannoneers of song and thought—the great artillerists—the foremost leaders, captains of the soul:)
As soldier from an ended war return’d—As traveler out of myriads, to the long procession retrospective.
Thanks—joyful thanks!—a soldier’s, traveler’s thanks.[49]
A great figure, the greatest assuredly in our literature—yet perhaps only a great child—summing up and transmitting into poetry all the passionate aspirations of an America that had passed through the romantic revolution, the poet of selfhood and the prophet of brotherhood, the virile man and the catholic lover—how shall Walt Whitman become dumb or cease to speak to men unless the children of those who are now half-devil and half-God shall prove to be wholly devil—or wholly moron?