g about
Whitman, Symonds said, was like talking about the universe, and it is so.
There is somewhat incommensurable in his works. One may not hope to speak
the final word about him, to sum him up in a sentence. He is so palpable,
so real, so near at hand, that the critic or expounder of him promises
himself an easy victory; but before one can close with him he is gone. He
is, after all, as subtle and baffling as air or light.

... "I will certainly elude you,
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you."

It is probably this characteristic which makes Whitman an irrepressible
figure in literature; he will not down for friend or foe. He escapes from
all classification, and is larger than any definition of him that has yet
been given. How many times has he been exploded by British and American
critics; how many times has he been labeled and put upon the shelf, only
to reappear again as vigorous and untranslatable as ever!

XVI

So far as Whitman stands merely for the spirit of revolt, or of reaction
against current modes in life and literature, I have little interest in
him. As the "apostle of the rough, the uncouth," to use Mr. Howells's
words, the world would long ago have tired of him. The irruption into
letters of the wild and lawless, or of the strained and eccentric, can
amuse and interest us only for a moment. It is because these are only
momentary phases of him, as it were, and because underneath all he
embraces the whole of life and ministers to it, that his fame and
influence are still growing in the world. One hesitates even to call
Whitman the poet of "democracy," or of "personality," or of "the modern,"
because such terms only half define him. He quickly escapes into that
large and universal air which all great art breathes. We cannot sum him up
in a phrase. He flows out on all sides, and his sympathies embrace all
types and conditions of men. He is a great democrat, but, first and last
and over all, he is a great man, a great nature, and deep world-currents
course through him. He is distinctively an American poet, but his
Americanism is only the door through which he enters upon the universal.

XVII

Call his work poetry or prose, or what you will: that it is an inspired
utterance of some sort, any competent person ought to be able to see. And
what else do we finally demand of any work than that it be inspir