A CRITICISM OF LIFE? 333 



Byron or Shelley. He remains a stiff, consistent, immitigable 

 Englishman ; and it may be questioned whether his stubborn 

 English temperament, his tough insular and local personality, 

 no less than a certain homeliness in his expression, may not 

 prove an obstacle to his acceptance as a cosmopolitan poet. 

 I find a curious note on British literature in the ' Democratic 

 Vistas ' of Walt Whitman, a portion of which, though it is 

 long, may here be not unprofitably cited : 



I add that, while England is among the greatest of lands in politica 

 freedom, or the idea of it, and in stalwart personal character, &c., the 

 spirit of English literature is not great at least, is not greatest and its 

 products are no models for us. With the exception of Shakespeare, there 

 is no first-class genius, or approaching to first-class, in that literature 

 which, with a truly vast amount of value and of artificial beauty (largely 

 from the classics), is almost always material, sensual, not spiritual 

 almost always congests, makes plethoric, not frees, expands, dilates is 

 cold, anti-democratic, loves to be sluggish and stately, and shows much 

 of that characteristic of vulgar persons, the dread of saying or doing 

 something not at all improper in itself, but unconventional, and that may 

 be laughed at. In its best, the sombre pervades it it is moody, 

 melancholy, and to give it its due, expresses in characters and plots 

 these qualities in an unrivalled manner. Yet not as the black thunder- 

 storms, and in great normal, crashing passions, as of the Greek 

 dramatists clearing the air, refreshing afterward, bracing with power ; 

 but as in Hamlet, moping, sick, uncertain, and leaving ever after a 

 secret taste for the blues, the morbid, the luxury of woe. 



This is a severe verdict to be spoken by one whose main 

 interest in life appears to be the building up of American 

 personality by means of great literature. To the Americans, 

 destined to be by far the most numerous of ' the English- 

 speaking public,' our poetry cannot remain a matter of 

 indifference, nor can their criticism of it be passed over by us 

 with neglect. They are in the unique position of possessing 

 our language as their mother tongue, and at the same time of 

 contemplating our literature from a point of view that is the 

 opposite of insular. Comparing English poetry with the 

 spirit of the American people, whom he knows undoubtedly 

 far better than the refined students of Boston, Walt Whitman 

 comes to the conclusion that there is but little in it that will 



