He carries the idea of individuality to its utmost height:
"What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man or woman is as good as God? And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?"
Glorying in individuality, in the freedom of the soul, he cries out:
"O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted!
To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand!
To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face!
To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance!
To be indeed a God!"
And again:
"O the joy of a manly self-hood!
To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown,
To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,
To look with calm gaze or with a flashing eye,
To speak with full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,
To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth."
Walt Whitman is willing to stand alone. He is sufficient unto himself, and he says:
"Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.
Strong and content I travel the open road."
He is one of
"Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and Governors,
as to say 'Who are you? '"