There are other phases of infantile sexual life that rule a person for life. One of these is that stage between the first period of the child's first sex life known as autoeroticism when it finds pleasure from its own body, and the period when it selects an object to love apart from itself. This stage is called narcissism because then the child loves itself. Many people never grow out of this; we are all more or less narcisstic. This narcissism is the basis of egoism in literature and is no doubt related to extreme individualism. Stirner, Nietzsche, and Stendhal, who rank intellectually among the greatest writers the world has had, are largely narcisstic. Walt Whitman would form a good subject for study of the manner in which infantile narcisstic sex life is sublimated in later life into individualism. The following are passages from the _Song of Myself_, showing that the narcisstic infantile life of Whitman was sublimated into good poetry and philosophy: "While they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself. Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean, Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.... Having pried through the strata, analysed to a hair, counsel'd with doctors and calculated close, I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.... Divine am I, inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch'd from, The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer, The head more than churches, bibles and all creeds. If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my body, or any part of it, Translucent mould of me it shall be you!... I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious." His early narcissism did not lead him into selfishness but taught him self-respect. He says in the _Song of Myself_: "I am an acme of things accomplished and an encloser of things to be ... I chant the chant of dilation or pride; We have had ducking and deprecating about enough...." In _From Blue Ontario's Shore_, he writes: "It is not the earth, it is not America who is so great, It is I who am great or to be great, it is you up there or any one.... Underneath all, individuals, I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals, The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual--namely to You.... I will confront these shows of the day and night, I will know if I am to be less than they.... I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have meaning." The following lines from _I Sing the Body Electric_ is another example: