WOMAN AND FREEDOM IN WHITMAN 371 
‘‘The Female equally with the Male I sing. 
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, 
Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine, 
The Modern Man I sing.” 
Whitman’s passages on woman convey the embodiment of 
her under practical aspects; also ideally as the typification 
of some of his noblest forms, as in the “Santa Spirita” and 
“Victress on the Peaks.” Comprehensively he addresses 
woman, “You womanhood divine, mistress and source of all, 
whence life and love and aught that comes from life and love.” 
The mother, wife, sister, daughter, nurse, comforter, the ad¬ 
ministrator in sickness and health, the artiste , the working 
woman or the woman of wealth and power, in all these capa¬ 
cities is she described. Even as the lowest prostitute she is 
not slurred by; in her, Whitman sees “the divine woman.” 
He tells women, “Be not ashamed — your privilege encloses 
the rest, and is the exit of the rest.” 
Following the words, “A woman’s body at auction,” are 
these lines: — 
“She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers, 
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers. 
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?” 
Whitman’s universal love for humanity did not permit him 
to withhold his heed and sympathy from one or all of these 
woman-types. 
The personal touch of woman’s presence is very dear to 
him; he relates that, starting betimes for a day’s outing at 
the seashore, fortified by a good breakfast, cooked by hands 
he loved, his “dear sister Lou’s,” how much better it made 
“the victuals taste and then assimilate,” — the whole day’s 
comfort afterwards resting upon this little service. 
In the hospital wards, too, the magnetic touch of hands, the 
expressive features of the mother, the silent soothing of her 
presence, her words, her knowledge and privileges, arrived 
at only through having had children, are the precious and 
final qualifications. It is a natural faculty that is required, it 
