READER'S ROCK LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE VOL 2 ISSUE 4 NOVEMBER 2014 Vol. 1 Issue 5 November 2013 | Page 59

directors, that "Leaves of Grass" was admitted into the catalogues of the Dublin library.
But the genuine merit of Walt Whitman's works, as the true inspiration of individualistic genius is always
destined to do, is rapidly conquering the opposition and prejudice even of those whose obtuse minds
seldom discover the intrinsic good motive frequently underlying an indifferent form. Those whose
objections rested on their incapacity of penetrating further than the surface of the headline are rapidly
beginning to discern in Walt Whitman's writings a force, a sentiment, a moral passion, and a natural
grandeur that is amply compensating for the occasional roughness or looseness of the expressions he
mirrors them in. Before his death the good old poet had not only the satisfaction of knowing that his
writings have been widely read and universally commented on, but he had the pleasure of seeing his
"Leaves of Grass" translated into German by T. W. Rolleston, of Dublin, and Professor Schwartz, of
Dresden, of having parts of it translated into French, and a few years ago Mr. Lee consulted me as to the
advisability of rendering them into Russian, parts of the book having already been published in the
periodicals of the Russian emigrés in Switzerland. Not only this, but his innovations, his genius, have
even founded a school, and has a following. The little volume published some time ago in England, under
the title "Toward Democracy," by Ed. Carpenter, written in the same style as "The Leaves of Grass," is
also gradually finding its way to the surface of the highest consideration. And such passages as this, when
Nature is calling to man:—
"I, Nature, stand and call to you, though you heed not:
"Have courage, come forth, O child of mine, that you may see me."
"As a nymph of the invisible air before her mortal beloved, so I glance before you. I dart and stand in
your path, and turn away from your heedless eyes like one in pain. I am the ground; I listen to the sound
of your feet. They come nearer. I shut my eyes and feel their tread over my face," etc. etc.; or such an
outburst as this: "Ireland—liberty's deathless flame leaping on her Atlantic shore,"—are enough to
convince the human mind that men who write them can be actuated only by impulses of which genius
alone is capable!
It is this impulse—this sober, solemn love pervading the writings of Walt Whitman which has invested
his compositions with a property far transcending in genuine beauty the effusions of those poets whose
object in writing is more the display of a capacity for finished manipulation[Pg 65] of delicate form, than
the manifestation of a free conception of a grand spirit. Walt Whitman is spontaneous without being
careless. His style is unhesitating, his diction is flowing, smooth, without being searching or verbose! It
seems as if his soul were responsive—not plaintively, but appreciatively responsive—to all the chords,
influences, and objects of nature; and that his imagination were absorptive enough to embrace and love,
and reflect all changes and transitions of light and shadow in nature and life, particularly in the inner
human life,—for Walt Whitman's love for humanity, permeating all his writings, has more grandeur than
the most heroic of classic epics!
Roman I. Zubof.
Boston, Mass.
From the Pages of

THE WRITER:
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE TO INTEREST AND HELP ALL LITERARY
WORKERS.
1892