dmirable enough, but because of his
verse, which is exceedingly irregular in more than one respect.

Whitman was by birth and training a man of the people. His father was a
carpenter, and, after receiving a common-school education, the boy
entered a printer's office at the age of thirteen. A printer's office
is, in itself, a source of education, and Whitman soon began to write
for the papers, finally going to New York City, where, for twelve years,
he worked on Newspaper Row, as reporter or compositor, making friends
with all sorts and conditions of men and entering heart and soul into
the busy life of the great city. The people, the seething masses on the
streets, had a compelling fascination for him.

Tiring of New York, at last, he started on a tramp trip to the
southwest, worked in New Orleans and other towns, swung around through
the northwest, and so back to Brooklyn, where he became, strangely
enough, a contractor--a builder and seller of houses. He had been
reading a great deal, all these years, but as yet had given no
indication of what was to be his literary life-work.

And yet, fermenting inside the man and at last demanding expression, was
a strange new philosophy of democracy, all-tolerant, holding the
individual to be of the first importance, male and female equal, the
body to be revered no less than the soul. For the promulgation of this
philosophy, some worthy literary form was needed--poetry, since that was
the noblest form, but poetry stripped of conventions and stock phrases,
as "fluent and free as the people and the land and the great system of
democracy which it was to celebrate." With some such idea as this, not
outlined in words, nor, perhaps, very clearly understood even by
himself, Whitman set to work, and the result was the now famous "Leaves
of Grass," a collection of twelve poems, printed by the author in
Brooklyn in 1855.

Like most other philosophies and prophecies, it fell on heedless ears.
Few people read it, and those who did were exasperated by its
far-fetched diction or scandalized by its free treatment of delicate
topics. In the next year, a second edition appeared, containing
thirty-two poems; but the book had practically no sale.

Then came the Civil War, and Whitman, volunteering not for the field,
but for work in the hospitals, proved that the doctrine of brotherly
love, so basic to his poems, was basic also to his character. "Not till
the sun excludes you, neither will I exc