if Whitman didn't use Brooklyn back-street slang, as a boy?

"No. Not Whitman. He's Keats--sensitive to silken things. 'Innumerable
of stains and splendid dyes as are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd
wings.' Keats, here! A bewildered spirit fallen on Main Street. And Main
Street laughs till it aches, giggles till the spirit doubts his own self
and tries to give up the use of wings for the correct uses of a 'gents'
furnishings store.' Gopher Prairie with its celebrated eleven miles of
cement walk. . . . I wonder how much of the cement is made out of the
tombstones of John Keatses?"

VII

Kennicott was cordial to Fern Mullins, teased her, told her he was a
"great hand for running off with pretty school-teachers," and promised
that if the school-board should object to her dancing, he would "bat 'em
one over the head and tell 'em how lucky they were to get a girl with
some go to her, for once."

But to Erik Valborg he was not cordial. He shook hands loosely, and
said, "H' are yuh."

Nat Hicks was socially acceptable; he had been here for years, and
owned his shop; but this person was merely Nat's workman, and the
town's principle of perfect democracy was not meant to be applied
indiscriminately.

The conference on a dramatic club theoretically included Kennicott, but
he sat back, patting yawns, conscious of Fern's ankles, smiling amiably
on the children at their sport.

Fern wanted to tell her grievances; Carol was sulky every time she
thought of "The Girl from Kankakee"; it was Erik who made suggestions.
He had read with astounding breadth, and astounding lack of judgment.
His voice was sensitive to liquids, but he overused the word "glorious."
He mispronounced a tenth of the words he had from books, but he knew it.
He was insistent, but he was shy.

When he demanded, "I'd like to stage 'Suppressed Desires,' by Cook and
Miss Glaspell," Carol ceased to be patronizing. He was not the yearner:
he was the artist, sure of his vision. "I'd make it simple. Use a big
window at the back, with a cyclorama of a blue that would simply hit you
in the eye, and just one tree-branch, to suggest a park below. Put
the breakfast table on a dais. Let the colors be kind of arty and
tea-roomy--orange chairs, and orange and blue table, and blue Japanese
breakfast set, and some place, one big flat smear of black--bang! Oh.
Another play I wish we could do is Tennyson Jesse's 'The Black Mask.'
I've never seen it but----Glorious ending,