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148 members of society, the poor, the slaves, even the delinquent and the fallen. Amid the evils that silence him he numbers

To his banquet he invites all men:

As friend he seeks a humble man:

In Tolstoi this attitude is a pose; but not in Whitman, for Whitman feels that he, like his humble friends, is stained with sin:

He is not ashamed to turn even to a woman of the streets with that poetic generosity which purifies all things: Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,

Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves