This is the old, old philosophy, ever forgotten, yet ever present. It is sure in the world of mechanics, it is equally true in the world of morals and of life. Nothing is lost; the force that once was heat is transformed to light; the flood that destroyed the grain, comes at last to turn the miller’s wheel. What we call sin and evil make the experiences of life and go to the upbuilding of character and the development of man. We can know only what we have felt, and however much we try to deceive others, we can tell only of the experiences we ourselves have had. The poorest life is the one that has no tale to tell. In the doubts and darkness of life, in the turbulence of mind and the anguish of the soul, it is most consoling to feel that resignation and confidence which comes from a realization that all is right and that you are master of yourself and at peace with God and man. This calm, optimistic, self-reliant philosophy is ever present with its consoling power in all Walt Whitman’s work. I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is, And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud, And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth, And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times, And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe, And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God, For I who am curious about each, am not curious about God, (No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death). I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go, Others will punctually come for ever and ever. This is not the boasting of the ignorant egotist who vaunts himself above his fellow man, but the calm, conscious serenity of a great soul, who has learned the patient philosophy of life. There is an egotism that is cheap and vulgar and born of ignorance alone. There is an egotism that comes from the knowledge that after all what we are depends not upon the estimate of the world, but upon the integrity and character of ourselves. This consciousness of individual worth brings that peace of soul, “which the world can neither give nor take away.”