"In metaphysical points, here is what I guess about pure and positive truths," undated, Walt Whitman Papers. Volume 67.

"In metaphysical points, here is what I guess about pure and positive truths," undated, Walt Whitman Papers. Volume 67.

Translation:
In Metaphysical points, here is what I guess about pure and positive truths. I guess that after all reasoning and analogy and their most palpable demonstrations of any thing, we have the real satisfaction only when the soul tells and tests by its own arc-chemic power – superior to the learnedest proofs, as one glance of living sight is more than quarto volumes of description and of maps. – There is something in vast erudition melancholy and fruitless as an Arctic sea. – With most men it is a slow dream, dreamed in a moving fog. – So complacent! So much body and muscle; fine legs to walk, - large supple hands – but the eyes are owl’s eyes, and the heart is a mackerel’s heart. – These words are for the great men, the gigantic few that have plunged themselves deep through density and confusion and pushed back the jealous coverings of the earth, and brought out the true and great things, and the sweet things, and being then like oranges, rounder and riper than all the rest, among our literature and science. – These words are for the five or six grand poets, too; and the masters of artists. I waste no ink, nor my throat on the ever-deploying armies of professors, authors, lawyers, teachers, and what not. Of them we expect that they be very learned, and nothing more.
What gentlemen! What then? Do you suppose it is for your geology and your chemistry and your mathematics