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Selectness he would replace with simplicity. No doubt he went too far. That is of small moment. Exaggeration and over-emphasis have their place in the scheme of things. A thunderstorm may be wanted to clear the air, and if it does incidentally some slight damage to crops and trees it is of no use grumbling. But in the main Whitman's theory of Art was very true and finely suggestive, and is certainly not the view of a man who cares for nothing but the wild and barbaric. "The art of Art, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity, nothing can make up for excess or for the lack of definiteness. To carry on the heave of impulse, and pierce intellectual depths, and give all subjects their articulations, are powers neither common nor very uncommon. But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods, and grass by the woodside, is the flawless triumph of Art." A fitting attitude for a Poet of Democracy, one likely to bring him into direct contact with the broad, variegated stream of human life. What perhaps he did not realize so clearly is that Nature, no less than Art, exercises the selective facility, and corrects her own riotous extravagance. And thus on occasion he falls into the very indefiniteness, the very excess he deprecates. The way in which his Art and democratic spirit correspond suggests another, though less unconventional poet of the Democracy--William Morris. The spaciousness the directness, the tolerance that characterise Whitman's work are to be found to Morris. Morris had no eclectic preferences either in Art or Nature. A wall paper, a tapestry, an epic were equally agreeable tasks; and a blade of grass delighted him as fully as a sunset. So with men. He loved many, but no one especially. Catholicity rather than intensity characterised his friendships. And, like Whitman, he could get on cheerfully enough with surprisingly unpleasant people, provided they were working for the cause in which he was interested. {197} That is the secret. Whitman and Morris loved the Cause. They looked at things in the mass, at people in the mass. This is the true democratic spirit. They had no time, nor must it be confessed any special interest--in the individual as such. What I have
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