LITERATURE 



subject-matter is the universe. He says his book is a 

 poem of himself; it is himself in relation to the whole 

 of life and of Nature. He is no more a gatherer of 

 flowers or of shells upon the beach than a rhapsod- 

 ist of the ocean or a worshiper of the stars; no 

 more a lover of men than a disciple of the gods; 

 no more a countryman than a "lover of populous 

 pavements "; no more a lover of solitude than a 

 lover of the mart. He is always large, he always 

 gives one a sense of mass and magnitude, of move- 

 ment and power. 



As an artist he does not loiter, he does not elab- 

 orate, he does not finish specimens; he showers 

 them, as he says, by exhaustless laws, continuously, 

 as Nature does. He is always fluid and flowing, al- 

 ways central, never baldly intellectual or reflective 

 or studiously subtle. He does not savor of books or 

 of schools. He is not a product of culture and of 

 generations of speaking and writing men, as Emer- 

 son is ; hence he has little of the peculiar Emersonian 

 aroma of scholars and scholarly traditions, or of 

 the distilled and concentrated essence of the wild 

 and the secluded, which in certain moods is so wel- 

 come to us. His "Leaves" do not lure us to the 

 woods or to the brookside, but rather to the sea- 

 shore or to the mountain-top. He does not make 

 you conscious of his craft; he fills you with the 

 feeling of himself. 



In the modern nature poets, such as Wordsworth 



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