he book in the fire.
Whittier's fame has not gone far beyond New England. The scholarly and
academic Lowell could not tolerate Whitman, and if Lowell has ever
written any true poetry, I have not seen it. What Longfellow thought
of him, I do not know. Thoreau saw his greatness at a glance and went
to see him. In England, I am told, Tennyson used to read him aloud in
select company. I know that the two poets corresponded. We catch a
glimpse of Swinburne's spasmodic insight in his first burst of
enthusiasm over him, and then of his weakness in recanting.
Swinburne's friend and house-mate, Watts Dunton, never could endure
him, but what has he done? So it has gone and still is going, though
now the acceptance of Whitman has become the fashion.

I have always patted myself on the back for seeing the greatness of
Whitman from the first day that I read a line of his. I was bewildered
and disturbed by some things, but I saw enough to satisfy me of his
greatness.

Whitman had the same faith in himself that Kepler had in his work.
Whitman said:

"Whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thousand, or ten million
years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait."

Kepler said: "The die is cast; the book is written, to be read either
now or by posterity. I care not which. It may well wait a century for
a reader, since God has waited six thousand years for an observer like
myself."

* * * * *

Judging from fragments of his letters that I have seen, Henry James
was unquestionably hypersensitive. In his dislike of publicity he was
extreme to the point of abnormality; it made him ill to see his name
in print, except under just the right conditions. He wanted all things
veiled and softened. He fled his country, abjured it completely. The
publicity of it, of everything in America--its climate, its day, its
night, the garish sun, its fierce, blazing light, the manner of its
people, its politics, its customs--fairly made him cringe. During his
last visit here he tried lecturing, but soon gave it up. He fled to
veiled and ripened and cushioned England--not to the country, but to
smoky London; and there his hypersensitive soul found peace and ease.
He became a British subject, washed himself completely of every
vestige of Americanism. This predilection of his probably accounts for
the obscurity or tantalizing indirectness of his writings. The last
story I