of the individual. Since he does not have to gather his expression round a typic character, that is, be concrete, he can vaguely allow that mystic depth which is common to all men. And since he strains, this, as it were, through the sieve of the American environment, the American ideals, manners, scenery, and chaos, he gets a product which is universal on the one hand but on the other with what might be called the American flavour.
If we examine Walt Whitman we find that the surface or exterior is an arrangement of American facts and creeds, lifeless and discrete in themselves, but become vital because they are fused with the revelation of his own unconscious. In short, we have something universal, or say, human in the broadest sense—something equally the property of every race—camouflaged by American paint. That this is not America is obvious. Yet "'tis enough, 'twill serve"—for it is indubitably American. We are all this universal masked by Americanism. Hence, its truly national character. Walt was Dutch, yet Carl Sandburg who is Swedish can prance his soul out to the same tunes and get a national expression with only a slightly different tinge. For, as I said before, this universal in us is conditioned by the stock we come from. Whitman and Sandburg differ from each other only in so far as the Dutch and Swedish differ.
Walt Whitman then gave us our first national art. How did he turn the trick? We had several other excellent poets, yet they never found the key which to-day unlocks American expression. I think it was because he realized that he must take a bold, conscious plunge, and not be afraid of creating art deliberately. Our poetry had been Colonial—whether English or European. Hence, the first task was to throw overboard those traditions; and the second was to find an expression more native to ourselves. But where find this? We have no folk, no soil song or literature: we have only our American speech, the resultant of new environment, mixture of races and new experience. This American speech is decidedly different in flavour and construction from English speech. It is not Colonial, but native, that is, environmental. It is a speech, however, which is not strictly polite. I think of Dante deciding to write in Italian vernacular instead of in Latin. Our Latin was our literary English. Whitman decided along Dante's line; namely, to write in American. The meaning of this is that he decided to
