THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE 231 
Lincoln, and that of the scenes in Washington after 
the first battle of Bull Run. What may be called 
the mass-movement of Whitman’s prose style — the 
rapid marshaling and grouping together of many facts 
and details, gathering up, and recruiting, and ex- 
panding as the sentences move along, till the force 
and momentum become like a rolling flood, or an 
army in echelon on the charge — is here displayed 
with wonderful effect. 
Noting and studying what forces move the world, 
the only sane explanation that comes to me of the 
fact that such writing as these little volumes contain 
has not, in this country especially, met with its due 
recognition and approval, is that, like all Whitman’s 
works, they have really never yet been published at 
all in the true sense,— have never entered the arena 
where the great laurels are won. They have been 
printed by the author, and a few readers have found 
them out, but to all intents and purposes they are 
unknown. 
I have not dwelt on Whitman’s personal circum- 
stances, his age (he is now, 1877, entering his fifty- 
ninth year), paralysis, seclusion, and the treatment 
of him by certain portions of the literary classes, 
although these have all been made the subjects of 
wide discussion of late, both in America and Great 
Britain, and have, I think, a bearing under the cir- 
cumstances on his character and genius. It is an 
unwritten tragedy that will doubtless always remain 
unwritten. I will but allude to an eloquent appeal 
of the Scotch poet, Robert Buchanan, published in 
