And now, like many other noble and good men,
after serving his country as a soldier, he has yielded up his
young life at the very outset in her service. Such things
are gloomy - yet there is a text, `God doeth all things
well,' the meaning of which, after due time, appears to the
soul.
"I thought perhaps a few words, though from a stranger, about
your son, from one who was with him at the last, might be
worth while, for I loved the young man, though I but saw him
immediately to lose him."
It is easy enough to pick holes in the grammar of this
letter, but what are we to say of its profound goodness and
tenderness? It is written as though he had the mother's face
before his eyes, and saw her wincing in the flesh at every
word. And what, again, are we to say of its sober
truthfulness, not exaggerating, not running to phrases, not
seeking to make a hero out of what was only an ordinary but
good and brave young man? Literary reticence is not
Whitman's stronghold; and this reticence is not literary, but
humane; it is not that of a good artist but that of a good
man. He knew that what the mother wished to hear about was
Frank; and he told her about her Frank as he was.
V.
Something should be said of Whitman's style, for style is of
the essence of thinking. And where a man is so critically
deliberate as our author, and goes solemnly about his poetry
for an ulterior end, every indication is worth notice.
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