All of us know how small and worthless are our lives when measured by the infinite bubbles poured out by the great creative power. All know that we shall quickly sink into the great dark sea and the waves will close above us as if we had not been. And yet we do not really think of the world as moving on the same when we have spoken our last lines and retired behind the scenes. To the world we are little,—to ourselves we are all. We almost hope that for a time at least we shall be missed,—that some souls shall sorrow and some lives feel pain. We hope that here and there some pilgrim will tell of a burden that we helped him bear, or a road we tried to smooth. That sometime when the merry feast is on, a former friend shall feel a momentary shadow rest upon his heart at the thought of the face he used to know and the voice that now is still. Thus Omar and FitzGerald mused and hoped and told in beautiful, pathetic lines: Yon rising Moon that looks for us again— How oft hereafter will she wax and wane; How oft hereafter rising look for us Through this same Garden—and for one in vain! And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass Among the Guests Star-scatter’d on the Grass, And in your blissful errand reach the spot Where I made one—turn down an empty Glass! WALT WHITMAN [Illustration] WALT WHITMAN The work of Whitman stands alone in the literature of the world. Both in substance and construction he ignored all precedents and dared to be himself. All the rules of form and taste must be unlearned before the world can accept his style as true literary art. Still it may be that Walt Whitman was a poet, and that sometime the world will look back and marvel at the mechanical precision and glittering polish that confines and emasculates for the sake of a purely artificial form.