So overflowing is his love for the universe that it could not find sufficient utterance if he were obliged to limit his expressions of love to things in general, to the all, to the infinite, to God. He must needs express to every single object his admiration and his affection, his pleasure and his wonder. As he looks upon the world, Walt Whitman is an optimist. An optimist, did I say? No, that is a cold and technical word, and will not serve for him. Say rather a passionate lover, a worshipper of the all—not so blind as to be unaware of the ugly and the evil, but so great as to extend his love to the ugly and the evil.
He is by instinct and by program the champion of all things:
And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am,
And sing and laugh and deny nothing.[1]
To his magnificent soul all is magnificent:
Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space, sphere of unnumber’d spirits,
Illustrious the mystery of motion in all beings, even the tiniest insect,
Illustrious the attribute of speech, the senses, the body,
Illustrious the passing light—illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky,
Illustrious whatever I see or hear or touch, to the last.
Good in all.[2]
All beautiful to me, all wondrous.[3]
