Harold Bloom, Emerson, me, and Whitman.

Something that cannot be denied about Bloom – he is enthusiastic in his intellectual convictions.

Of course Emerson was of the opinion that ““Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Which enthusiastically leads me to my favorite Whitman excerpt from Songs of Myself:

“Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of
every moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me,
shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.”