An Egotistical "Find"
I wonder when Whitman had this moment -- had he known this message before he wrote "Leaves of Grass" or is this more along the lines of finding that his theory is true -- that, by testing his idea, he has found results that make it true? He has immersed himself in "primitive Nature" that consists of "broad handling and absolute uncrampedness" (marking the distinguishing feature of it versus the "advanced, but crowded and limited" civilization) for "hour after hour". He, again as in some other entries I have read, "painted" the scenery with images of "transparent browns, faint red and grays, towering sometimes a thousand, sometimes two or three thousand feet high -- at their tops now and then huge massed pois'd, and mixing with clouds, with only their outlines, hazed in misty lilac, visible". In particular, when one looks at the quote from the "old Dutch writer" and of Whitman's account, both acknowledge the idea of thinking how nature and its surroundings "may affect him or color his destinies"; the reference to color is definitely noticeable in that the mixture of different, natural scenes and forces create not only the universe, but also one's idea of what is universal.
Speaking of the quote, overall, at the same time, however, I feel like Whitman has become slightly distant from his original terms. In addition to the word alterations found in words like "pass'd", "untrammel'd", and "pois'd" that allude to "Shakespearean"/Biblical language, there's also the fact that he quotes "an old Dutch writer, an ecclesiastic", seems a bit strange as well. By recognizing someone who can be considered as among the upper-class, it almost seems unlike Whitman, unless this was written at a later time when Whitman seemed to have taken in to "sprucing himself up" in a mold of a typical poet. Still, the point about finding oneself in nature is found in the quote, just as it can be found in Whitman's account of this "egotistical 'find"'.
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