Nature and Democracy -- Morality

In this section of Specimen Days, Whitman has opened up a beautiful train of thought:  Democracy, like art, needs nature to be healthy, beautiful, and strong. How simple... and how easily forgotten.  And I'm sure our neglect of nature wasn't even as pervasive or extreme then as it is now!  He could smell it in the wind...

"American Democracy, in its myriad personalities, in factories, work-shops, stores, offices -- through the dense streets and houses of cities, and all their manifold sophisticated life -- must either be fibred, vitalized, by regular contact with out-door light and air and growths, farm-scenes, animals, fields, trees, birds, sun-warmth and free skies, or it will certainly dwindle and pale" -Walt Whitman

 Whitman for President!!