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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.