Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/372

 346 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1856,

pete with their inhabitants. But even on this side he has spoken more truth than any Ameri- ican or modern that I know. I have found his poem exhilarating, encouraging. As for its sensuality, and it may turn out to be less sensual than it appears, I do not so much wish that those parts were not written, as that men and women were so pure that they could read them without harm, that is, without under standing them. One woman told me that no woman could read it, as if a man could read what a woman could not. Of course Walt Whitman can communicate to us no experience, and if we are shocked, whose experience is it that we are reminded of ?

On the whole, it sounds to me very brave and American, after whatever deductions. I do not believe that all the sermons, so called, that have been preached in this land put together are equal to it for preaching.

We ought to rejoice greatly in him. He oc casionally suggests something a little more than human. You can t confound him with the other inhabitants of Brooklyn or New York. How they must shudder when they read him ! He is awfully good.

To be sure I sometimes feel a little imposed on. By his heartiness and broad generalities he puts me into a liberal frame of mind prepared