WOMAN AND FREEDOM IN WHITMAN 375 



tring around the mother's instinctive love, in the "Doll's 

 House," where, in the development of the plot, and for mo- 

 tives displayed, Nora leaves her children. 



Turning our thoughts towards Jerusalem and the events of 

 that memorable day on Mount Calvary, at the moment when 

 Jesus from the cross saw his mother and the disciple whom 

 he loved standing by, and whom he addressed in these words : 

 "Woman, behold thy son!" and to the disciple, "Behold thy 

 mother!" we bring to ourselves from this scene an imprint 

 beyond the mere interpretation of the words, which are that 

 Mary and John should cling to each other in mutual sustain- 

 ment and comfort." Much more is meant by these words of 

 Jesus. They stand as the utterance of one who, out of the 

 depth of agony and love for humanity, foresaw in spiritual 

 relationship the horizon of a richer and more glowing dawn. 



If Whitman tacitly accords to woman, in the vigorous out- 

 lines of many of his poems, the rights to freedom, self- eman- 

 cipation, and the individual life, he does so more generally 

 by including her under the impersonal cognomen of man. 

 In the verses where her sex is especially spoken of, the poet 

 seems to have restricted her spheres, with few exceptions 

 (among these "Mediums" maybe noted), to those capacities 

 serving the ends of practical life. 



Whitman pauses less upon his touches of woman leading 

 an individual life apart from sexuality, maternity, domestic- 

 ity, and toil. All of these activities being by no means meant 

 by me to be excluded, one and all, from her individual life; 

 they may form a part of it, but not one and all are consequently 

 essential to woman's individual development. The exercise 

 of the woman's special functions just enumerated are, indeed, 

 accidental and quite separate from her real life, just as much 

 as the claims of paternity and laboring for the support of a family 

 are apart from man's. The real life of man or woman may 

 be conceived of as being the mental and emotional life, which 

 may or may not inclose for woman aspects of maternity, do- 

 mesticity, and toil. In other words, the individual life is the 

 life of self, denuded of all externalities. 



Whitman is not insensible to woman's needs, nor to her 



