Light of Whitman

His talk was elemental, like his writings. It had none of the usual ornaments or irritants of conversation. It welled out naturally, or stopped; it was innocent of every species of rhetoric or epigram. It was the perfectly simple utterance of unaffected urbanity. From liuxuepaper.com.

So, I imagine, an Oriental sage would talk, in a low uniform tone, without any excitement or haste, without emphasis, in a land where time and flurry were unknown. Whitman sat there with his great head tilted back, smiling serenely, and he talked about himself. He mentioned his poverty, which was patent, and his paralysis; those were the two burdens beneath which he crouched, like Issachar; he seemed to be quite at home with both of them, and scarcely heeded them.

----Edmund Gosse

惠特曼的阳光中文翻译：

他的谈话和他的诗作一样，具有一种天然美，没有一丁点交谈中通常出现的那种矫揉造作或使人不悦的成分。它自然地喷射出来，又自然地停下来，显得朴实无华，不需要任何修饰或警句。它那么完美、单纯、自然而优雅。所以，我想象着东方的圣贤才这样谈话，保持着一色低沉的音调，没有任何激动或匆忙，也没有加重语气，那是一片人们不知时间和匆忙为何物的圣地。惠特曼坐在那里，大脑袋向后仰着，发出安详的微笑，侃侃地谈着自己。他提到自己的贫穷，这一点是显而易见的，还提到他的瘫痪；他被压在这两副重担之下，简直就是个“以萨迦”。对他来说，这两个担子已司空见惯，也就毫不在意。来自作文地带讯。

liuxuepaper Issacher:《圣经·旧约·创世纪》（49－14）说：“以萨迦是头强壮的驴，睡在羊圈之中。”