towering above a poetical movement which he has fathered, scattering social and political and religious gospels, with troops of disciples and unbelievers in this and other lands, crying still proudly as of old: "All that I have said concerns you." He is important, because he recognized that, though there are many ways by which a man can attract attention and get a temporary hearing, there is only one way by which he can permanently interest and attach the affections of the American people and so hold a place among the great Americans: that is by helping them unfold the meanings, fulfil the promises, and justify the faith of democratic society.
By making himself important to the American people as the poetic interpreter of their political and social ideals, Whitman, as things are turning out, finds himself now mid-stream in the democratic movement which encompasses the earth. At the present time it is manifest that, in spite of obstacles and cross-currents, the central current of the world is making towards democracy. Whatever else it involves, democracy involves at least one grand salutary elementary admission, namely, that the world exists for the benefit and for the improvement of all the decent individuals in it. Till recently this admission in many quarters had never been made, had been savagely opposed. It is covertly, secretly, indirectly opposed in many quarters of our own country even to-day. Now the indications are that those who opposite it are going to
