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 
