376 LITERARY PAPERS 



possibilities as a future power in the greater development of the 

 race, apart from her maternal qualities; everywhere is claimed 

 for her equality and equal share in the freedom she is to be the 

 co-worker with man to gain. In comparatively few parts of 

 the poet's works are the concrete affairs of life in the lines just 

 mentioned discussed; but when Whitman is moved to give 

 expression to his aspiring opinion, he does so forcibly, with 

 the least weight on the material properties, which he indeed 

 considers insignificant before the higher gains of character 

 and personality. 

 He tells us that - 



"The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretch'd wharves, 

 docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely, 



Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings or shops selling goods 

 from the rest of the earth, 



Nor the place of the best libraries, and schools, nor the place where money 

 is plentiest;" 



but where " common words and deeds " exist as monuments 

 to heroes, there thrift and prudence are in their places, - 



" Where the men and women think lightly of the laws, 



Where the slave and the master of slaves ceases, 



Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of 



elected persons, 

 Where outside authority enters always after the precedence of inside 



authority, 

 Where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President, Mayor, 



Governor, and what not, are agents for pay, 

 Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on 



themselves, 



Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs, 

 Where speculations on the soul are encouraged, 

 Where women walk in public processions in the streets the same as the 



men, 

 Where they enter the public assembly and take places the same as the 



men." 



And as a blow against making gods of all the relative 

 acquisitions on the material plane, he adds, "and nothing 



