Fox's "Friends"--though the meaning of the title may originally have been "Friends of the Truth"--were real friends; united in a new ideal of communion. They shared the highest experience in common; meeting for the purpose of entering together into "the power of the life". And Whitman also realised that life at its highest is only revealed to comrades. His view of religion was even less formal than that of the early Quakers; but he, too, preferred to sit in silence with those he loved, realising that Divine power and purpose which was one in them. Quakerism has not unfairly been spoken of as a spiritual aristocracy; there seems to be something essentially exclusive about it. On the other hand, it is essentially democratic and would exclude none; but the methods necessary to its conception of truth do not appeal to the many. Similarly, the Fellowship of Whitman's Comrades must be an aristocracy of overmen--if the words can be divested of all sinister association and read in their most literal sense. Whitman recognised that his inner teachings could only be accepted by the few, and for them he set them forth. But for the many also, he had a message. And though the actual comrades of Whitman must be able to rise to his breadth of view and depth of purpose, that purpose embraces the whole world. For the possibility of Comradeship is implicit in every soul; and there is none--no, not the most foolish or perverted or conventionally good--who is ultimately incapable of entering into it. The fellowship must be as essentially attractive as was the personality of Whitman himself; and if few should be chosen to be its members, yet all would be called. Once realised as the one end of all individual and social life, such a Comradeship would transform our institutions and theories whether of ethics, politics, education or religion. In a word, it would change life into a fine art. For it could be no Utopian theory, but the most practicable of gospels. The seed has been already sown, and we may now await with confidence the growth of a tree through whose branches all the stars of faith will yet shine, and in whose embracing roots all the rocks of science will be held together.[651] FOOTNOTES: [636] W. M. Rossetti in _Anne Gilchrist_. [637] _Cf._ Saintsbury's _Nineteenth Century Lit._, and Stephen's _English Thought in Eighteenth Century_, ch. xii. [638] _Camden's Compliment_, 73. [639] _Cf._ W. H. Hudson's _Rousseau_, 245, 246. [640] _Comp. Prose_, 287; Guthrie, _op. cit._, 100, 101. [641] G. Gilchrist, _op. cit._ [642] Kennedy, 106, 178. [643] _Cf._ Triggs' _Browning and Whitman_. [644] Mazzini's _Duties of Man_, etc.; _cf._ Bolton King's _Mazzini_. [645] See _supra_, 113-6, etc. [646] Triggs, _op. cit._; Prof. Jones's _Browning_. [647] Note added to _My Confession_ in 1882. [648] _A Dream of John Ball_, and _Life of William Morris_, by J. W. Mackail. [649] _In re_, 244; _Comp. Prose_, 168, 169, 245; Camden, ix., 172.