This is the man whom Mr. Harlan charges with having written a bad book. I might ask, How long is it since bad books have been the flower of good lives? How long is it since grape-vines produced thorns or fig-trees thistles? But Mr. Harlan says the book is bad because it is “full of indecent passages.” This allegation has been brought against _Leaves of Grass_ before. It has been sounded loud and strong by many of the literary journals of both continents. As criticism it is legitimate. I may contemn the mind or deplore the moral life in which such a criticism has its source; still, as criticism it has a right to existence. But Mr. Harlan, passing the limits of opinion, inaugurates punishment. He joins the band of the hostile verdict; he incarnates their judgment; then, detaching himself, he proceeds to a solitary and signal vengeance. As far as he can have it so, this author, for having written his book shall starve. He shall starve, and his name shall receive a brand. This is the essence of Mr. Harlan’s action. It is a dark and serious step to take. Upon what grounds is it taken? I have carefully counted out from Walt Whitman’s poetry the lines, perfectly moral to me, whether viewed in themselves or in the light of their sublime intentions and purport, but upon which ignorant and indecent persons of respectability base their sweeping condemnation of the whole work. Taking _Leaves of Grass_, and the recent small volume, _Drum-Taps_ (which was in Mr. Harlan’s possession), there are in the whole about nine thousand lines or verses. From these, including matter which I can hardly imagine objectionable to any one, but counting every thing which the most malignant virtue could shrink from, I have culled eighty lines. Eighty lines out of nine thousand! It is a less proportion than one finds in Shakespeare. Upon this so slender basis, rests the whole crazy fabric of American and European slander, and the brutal lever of the Secretary.