"About the questions on 'Calamus,' etc., they quite daze me. Leaves of Grass is only to be rightly construed by and within its own atmosphere and essential character—all its pages and pieces so coming strictly under. That the 'Calamus' part has ever allowed the possibility of such construction as mentioned is terrible. I am fain to hope that the pages themselves are not to be even mentioned for such gratuitous and quite at the time undreamed and unwished possibility of morbid inferences—which are disavowed by me and seem damnable."
It would seem from this letter[[96]] that Whitman had never realized that there is any relationship whatever between the passionate emotion of physical contact from man to man, as he had experienced it and sung it, and the act which with other people he would regard as a crime against nature. This may be singular, for there are many inverted persons who have found satisfaction in friendships less physical and passionate than those described in Leaves of Grass, but Whitman was a man of concrete, emotional, instinctive temperament, lacking in analytical power, receptive to all influences, and careless of harmonizing them. He would most certainly have refused to admit that he was the subject of inverted sexuality. It remains true, however, that "manly love" occupies in his work a predominance which it would scarcely hold in the feelings of the "average man," whom Whitman wishes to honor. A normally constituted person, having assumed the very frank attitude taken up by Whitman, would be impelled to devote far more space and far more ardor to the subject of sexual relationships with women and all that is involved in maternity than is accorded to them in Leaves of Grass. Some of Whitman's extant letters to young men, though they do not throw definite light on this question, are of a very affectionate character,[[97]] and, although a man of remarkable physical vigor, he never felt inclined to marry.[[98]] It remains somewhat difficult to classify him from the sexual point of view, but we can scarcely fail to recognize the presence of a homosexual tendency.
I should add that some friends and admirers of Whitman are not prepared to accept the evidence of the letter to Symonds. I am indebted to "Q." for the following statement of the objections:—
"I think myself that it is a mistake to give much weight to this letter—perhaps a mistake to introduce it at all, since if introduced it will, of course, carry weight. And this for three or four reasons:—
"1. That it is difficult to reconcile the letter itself (with its strong tone of disapprobation) with the general 'atmosphere' of Leaves of Grass, the tenor of which is to leave everything open and free.
"2. That the letter is in hopeless conflict with the 'Calamus' section of poems. For, whatever moral lines Whitman may have drawn at the time of writing these poems, it seems to me quite incredible that the possibility of certain inferences, morbid or other, was undreamed of.
"3. That the letter was written only a few months before his last illness and death, and is the only expression of the kind that he appears to have given utterance to.
"4. That Symonds's letter, to which this was a reply, is not forth coming; and we consequently do not know what rash expressions it may have contained—leading Whitman (with his extreme caution) to hedge his name from possible use to justify dubious practices."
I may add that I endeavored to obtain Symonds's letter, but he was unable to produce it, nor has any copy of it been found among his papers.
It should be said that Whitman's attitude toward Symonds was marked by high regard and admiration. "A wonderful man is Addington Symonds," he remarked shortly before his own death; "some ways the most indicative and penetrating and significant man of our time. Symonds is a curious fellow; I love him dearly. He is of college breed and education, horribly literary and suspicious, and enjoys things. A great fellow for delving into persons and into the concrete, and even into the physiological and the gastric, and wonderfully cute." But on this occasion he delved in vain.