The Gift of the Spirit

It is the con sciousness which was possessed beyond all known measures by Walt Whitman, and it accounts for his universal sympathies ; it is the ground of comparison between Mulford and Whitman, in most things else unlike, and it seems certain that those who understand the colossus of Manhattan, who, in his order, was without peer or parallel, will understand also, even if they fail to appreciate, the obscure seer of Long Island. But in the end and because of the gift, it is credible that they will also appreciate him, in spite of the strange motley of his transcendental appanage.