Whitman's reaction to his urge for comradely love is full of contradictions on the one hand, he openly affirms proclaims his nature as a new gospel; on the other, he resorts to the mask, the innuendo and even forthright denial. Peter Doyle said he "permitted no familiarities," yet his verses testify repeatedly to just such familiarities. Some critics find in his contradictions his very all-encompassing spirit which made him sing, "Omnes! Omnes! let others ignore what they may;" He did attempt to be all-encompassing, to commemorate vast catalogues, to express all thoughts and emotions, (making his shock denial peculiarly out of character, as if Christ had suddenly refused to associate with sinners.) Selfcontradiction however is no unusual characteristic in a man, even a great man, particularly a poet. A simpler explanation appears in the unresolved contradiction (birthmark of the homo-sexual) in his own nature.

THE MANLY LOVE OF COMRADES

There were in Whitman's view two sorts of love. Amative love is that sexual (generally hetero-sexual) passion which knits families together. Adhesive love (manly love "more than friendship") is the cement to a vigorous expanding society. How far he meant adhesive love to go is uncertain how much phrased in symbols how much poetic license. The notion of "homo-sexual marriage" would have shocked him, perhaps, as did "cruising" though he seems to have done the latter. Yet he did not envision manly love as stand-offish, purely spiritual.

"As the hugging and loving Bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day, with stealthy tread,"

"I mind how once we lay, such a transparent summer morning;

How you settled your head athwart my hips, and gently turned over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart..."

Yet some of his private notebooks seem almost tormented as he strives to "depress the adhesive nature it is in excess, making life a torment.” Other times, letters assure "dear comrades" in New York he was "no backslider."

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