About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

1 Walt Whitman, A Dialogue 360 (1845)

handle is hein.death/dialo0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 







































   A  DIALOGUE.

BY  WALTER   WHITMAN.


  WHAT would be thought of a man
who,  having an ill humor in his blood,
should strive to cure himself by only
cutting off the festers, the outward
signs of it, as they appeared upon the
surface ? Put  criminals for festers and
society for the diseased man, and you
may  get the spirit of that part of our
laws which  expects to abolish wrong-
doing by  sheer terror-by  cutting off
the wicked, and taking no heed of the
causes of wickedness.   I have  lived
long enough to know that national folly
never deserves contempt; else should I


laugh to scorn such an instance of ex-
quisite nonsense!
  Our  statutes are supposed to speak
the settled will and voice of the com-
munity.   We   may  imagine,  then, a
conversation of the following sort to
take place-the   imposing majesty  of
the people speaking  on the one  side,
a pallid, shivering convict on the other.
  I  have done wrong, says the con-
vict; in an evil hour a kind of frenzy
came  over me, and I struck my neigh-
bor a heavy  blow, which  killed him.
Dreading punishment,  and the disgrace


* The older writers transfer to  owe the sense of  own:
                        You make  me strange,
                  Ev'n to the disposition that I owe.
                                           lbid.-Et passim.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most