The idea of an American poet was "in the air". Intellectual America was in revolt; she would remain no longer a mere province of Britain; her writers should shape themselves no more upon merely English models. Lowell in his "Biglow Papers" and Longfellow in "Hiawatha" were among many who sought to exploit the literary soil of the New World. Whatever their success in this, they can hardly be said to have inaugurated a new literature. No American Muse had yet appeared upon the Heights of Helicon to spread a new hush over the world, and by her singing raise the place of song perilously near to the stars. But though she had not appeared she was eagerly expected; and Emerson's letter is like nothing so much as the heralding cry that he had at last caught a glimpse of her across Whitman's pages. It was but a glimpse, and he was yet in doubt; he must come to Brooklyn himself, must meet this fellow face to face, and see. FOOTNOTES: [141] _Camb. Mod. Hist._, 417, 418. [142] _Comb. Mod. Hist._, 440. [143] _Ib._, 701. [144] Roosevelt, 195. [145] _Comp. Prose_, 217. [146] Roosevelt, 199. [147] Burroughs (_a_), 24, 25. [148] Bucke, 25. [149] MSS. Traubel. [150] Bucke, 24. [151] _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iv., 178. [152] _Mem. Hist. N.Y._, iv., 179; _cf._ _Saturday Rev._, 30th June, 1894. [153] G. Bousquet, _Nouvelle Biog. Générale_. [154] MSS. Wallace. [155] Bucke, 157. [156] M. D. Conway, _Autobiography_, vol. i. [157] Bucke, 24; Johnston, 42, 43. [158] _In re_, 35, 36. [159] _In re_, 36. [160] Bucke, 26. [161] _Ib._, 137. [162] _L. of G._, 322. [163] _L. of G._, 443. [164] Kennedy, 74, 75 n.; Dr. Platt's _Walt Whitman_, 27, 28, etc. [165] Burroughs (_a_), 50. [166] 17th Feb., 1855, qu. in _Alibone_. [167] _Emerson in Concord_, 227-233. CHAPTER VII WHITMAN'S MANIFESTO It is time that we ourselves took a view of the book, for we must see what Whitman had actually done during these last months, and gather what further indications we may as to his general notions of himself and of the world. The volume consists of a long preface or manifesto[168] of the New Poetry, and of twelve poems by way of example. The preface commences with a description of America, the greatest of poems, the largest and most stirring of all the doings of men. "Here is action untied from strings, necessarily blind to particulars and details, magnificently moving in masses!" Here is a nation, hospitable, spacious, prolific; a nation whose common people is a larger race than hitherto, demanding a larger poetry.