Note 7 — WHITMAN.

I think this defective scientific perception is perhaps as responsible as any failure of moral insight for the vigorous manner in which an element of “manly love” flourishes in “Calamus” and elsewhere. Whitman is hardy enough to assert that he expects it will to a large extent take the place of love between the sexes. “Manly love,” even in its extreme form, is certainly Greek, as is the degradation of women with which it is always correlated; yet the much slighter degradation of women in modern times Whitman sincerely laments.