We see that the letter which, on the face of it, might have represented the swift and indignant reaction of a man who, suddenly faced by the possibility that his work may be interpreted in a perverse sense, emphatically repudiates that interpretation, was really nothing of the kind.

Symonds for at least eighteen years had been gently, considerately, even humbly, yet persistently, asking the same perfectly legitimate question.

If the answer was really an emphatic no, it would more naturally have been made in 1872 than 1890.

Moreover, in the face of this ever-recurring question, Whitman constantly speaks to his friends of his great affection for Symonds and his admiration for his intellectual cuteness, feelings that would both be singularly out of place if applied to a man who was all the time suggesting the possibility that his writings contained inferences that were "terrible," "morbid," and "damnable." Evidently, during all those years, Whitman could not decide what to reply.

On the one hand he was moved by his horror of being questioned, by his caution, by his natural aversion to express approval of anything that could be called unnatural or abnormal.