Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/152

 may reckon our divergence from the right path of human happiness. If it perturbs us to read his jottings of "specimen days" along Timber creek, wrestling with his twelve-foot oak sapling to gain strength, sluicing in clear water and scouring his naked limbs with his favorite flesh-brush, ruminating in blest solitude among the tints of sunset, the odor of mint-leaves and the moving airs of the summer meadow—if this gives us a twinge, then it is probably because we have divorced ourselves from the primitive joyfulness of the open air. If we find his trumpetings of physical candor shameful or unsavory, perhaps it is because we have not schooled our thoughts to honest cleanliness. (Though Anne Gilchrist's gentle comment must not be forgotten: "Perhaps Walt Whitman has forgotten the truth that our instincts are beautiful facts of nature, as well as our bodies; and that we have a strong instinct of silence about some things.") If we find him lacking in humor or think some of his catalogues tedious—there are catalogues and shortage of humor even in some books considered sacred. And Whitman, if not a humorist himself, has been (as Mr. Chesterton would say) the cause of humor in others. How adorably he has lent himself to parody! But this by the way. The point is, Whitman is a true teacher: first the thrashing, then the tenderness. No one ever found him exhilarating on the first reading. But he is a hound of heaven. He will hunt you down and find you out. Expurgate him for