optimism; the mere joy of living is so immense in Walt Whitman’s veins that it abolishes the possibility of any other kind of feeling.
“To breathe the air, how delicious!
To speak, to walk, to seize something by the hand!…
To be this incredible God I am!…
O amazement of things, even the least particle!
spirituality of things!…
I too carol the Sun, usher’d or at noon, or as now, setting,
I too throb to the brain and beauty of the earth and of all the growths of the earth….
I sing to the last the equalities, modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things,
I say Nature continue– glory continues,
I praise with electric voice,
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe,
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last.”
So Rousseau, writing of the nine years he spent at Annecy, with nothing but his happiness to tell:
