went down to the war fields of Virginia . . . lived thenceforward
in camp--saw great battles and the days and nights afterward--partook
of all the fluctuations, gloom, despair, hopes again arous'd, courage
evoked--death readily risk'd--_the cause_, too--along and filling
those agonistic and lurid following years . . . the real parturition
years . . . of this henceforth homogeneous Union. Without those
three or four years and the experiences they gave, _Leaves of Grass_
would not now be existing.

Having thus obtained the necessary stimulus for the quickening and
awakening of the personal self, some day to be endowed with universality,
he sought to find new notes of song, and, passing beyond the mere passion
for expression, he aimed at 'Suggestiveness' first.

I round and finish little, if anything; and could not, consistently
with my scheme. The reader will have his or her part to do, just as
much as I have had mine. I seek less to state or display any theme
or thought, and more to bring you, reader, into the atmosphere of the
theme or thought--there to pursue your own flight.

Another 'impetus-word' is Comradeship, and other 'word-signs' are Good
Cheer, Content and Hope. Individuality, especially, he sought for:

I have allow'd the stress of my poems from beginning to end to bear
upon American individuality and assist it--not only because that is a
great lesson in Nature, amid all her generalizing laws, but as
counterpoise to the leveling tendencies of Democracy--and for other
reasons. Defiant of ostensible literary and other conventions, I
avowedly chant 'the great pride of man in himself,' and permit it to
be more or less a _motif_ of nearly all my verse. I think this pride
is indispensable to an American. I think it not inconsistent with
obedience, humility, deference, and self-questioning.

A new theme also was to be found in the relation of the sexes, conceived
in a natural, simple and healthy form, and he protests against poor Mr.
William Rossetti's attempt to Bowdlerise and expurgate his song.

From another point of view _Leaves of Grass_ is avowedly the song of
Sex and Amativeness, and even Animality--though meanings that do not
usually go along with these words are behind all, and will duly
emerge; and all are sought to be lifted into a different light and
atmosphere. Of this feature, intentiona