aristocracy.  Whitman’s talk of democratic averages is beside the point.  The process of levelling up and levelling down only produces low standards.  What the world needs, whether in England or America, is a new sort of aristocracy—­simple, disinterested, bold, sympathetic, enthusiastic men, of clear vision and free thought.  And what the democracy needs is not an envious dislike of all prominence and greatness, but an eye for all greatness, and an admiration for all courage and largeness of soul.  England suspects, perhaps erroneously, that America has founded an aristocracy of wealth and influence and physical prowess, rather than an aristocracy of simplicity and fearlessness.  One believes that the competitive, the prize-winning spirit, is even more dominant in America than in England.  No one doubts the fierce energy and the aplomb of America; but can it be said that ideas, the existence of which is the ultimate test of national vigour, are really more prevalent in America than in England?  It all depends, of course, upon whether one values the Greek or the Roman ideal more highly, the interest, that is, of life, or the desire to rule and prosper.  If the aim of civilisation is orderliness, then the Roman aim is the better; but if the aim is spiritual animation, then the Greeks are the winners.  Yet in the last century, England has been more fruitful in ideas than America, although America is incomparably more interested in education than England is.

But it is hard to balance these things.  What remains is the fact that Walt Whitman has drawn a fine democratic ideal.  His democrat is essentially a worker, with every sort of vigorous impulse, living life in an ecstasy of health and comradeship, careless of money and influence and position, content to live a simple life, finding beauty, and hope, and love, and labour, enough, in the spirit of the great dictum of William Morris, that the reward of labour is life—­not success or power or wealth, but the sense of living fully and freely.

I do not claim that this spirit exists in England yet; but does it exist in America?  What, in fact, constitutes the inspiration of the average American; what does he expect to find in life, and to make of life?  Whitman has no doubt at all.  But in what other American writer does this ideal find expression?

4

It remains to say a few words about the artistic methods of Walt Whitman.  He himself claims no artistic standard whatever.  He says that he wishes to create an atmosphere; and that his one aim has been suggestiveness.  “I round and finish little, if anything; and could not consistently with my scheme.  The reader will always have his or her part to do, just as much as I have had mine.”