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Our Real Culmination</font></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#B1B1B1"><td height="1"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/horiz_bar602.gif" width="603" height="1" alt=""></td></tr><tr><td> <table width="601" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#ffffff"> <tr><td align="LEFT" height="25" width="1%" valign="MIDDLE"><a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/3019.html"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/lt.gif" border="0" width="8" height="17"></a></td> <td align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="-1">  <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/3019.html">PREVIOUS</a></font></td> <td align="RIGHT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="-1"><a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/3021.html">NEXT</a>  </font></td> <td align="RIGHT" width="1%" valign="MIDDLE"><a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/3021.html"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/gt.gif" border="0" width="8" height="17"></a></td></tr></table></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#B1B1B1"> <td height="1"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/horiz_bar602.gif" width="603" height="1"></td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER" valign="BOTTOM" height="25"><font size="-1"><a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/">CONTENTS</a> · <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/br/229.html">BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD</a></font></td></tr> </table></form>  <table align="CENTER" width="601" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#ffffff">  <tr><td align="CENTER">Walt Whitman <font size="-1">(18191892).</font>  Prose Works. <font size="-1">1892.</font></td></tr> <tr><td>  </td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"><font color="#9C9C63" size="+1">III. Notes Left Over</font></td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"><font color="#9C9C63" size="+2"><b>20. Our Real Culmination</b></font></td></tr> <tr><td>  </td></tr>  </table> <table align="CENTER" width="601" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#ffffff">  <tr><td>T<font size="-1">HE FINAL</font> culmination of this vast and varied Republic will be the production and perennial establishment of millions of comfortable city homesteads and moderate-sized farms, healthy and independent, single separate ownership, fee simple, life in them complete but cheap, within reach of all. Exceptional wealth, splendor, countless manufactures, excess of exports, immense capital and capitalists, the five-dollar-a-day hotels well filld, artificial improvements, even books, colleges, and the suffrageall, in many respects, in themselves, (hard as it is to say so, and sharp as a surgeons lance,) form, more or less, a sort of anti-democratic disease and monstrosity, except as they contribute by curious indirections to that culminationseem to me mainly of value, or worth consideration, only with reference to it.</td><td valign="top" align="right"><font size="-2"><a name="1"><i>   1</i></a></font></td></tr> <tr><td>  There is a subtle something in the common earth, crops, cattle, air, trees, &c., and in having to do at first hand with them, that forms the only purifying and perennial element for individuals and for society. I must confess I want to see the agricultural occupation of America at first hand permanently broadend. Its gains are the only ones on which God seems to smile. What otherswhat business, profit, wealth, without a taint? What fortune elsewhat dollardoes not stand for, and come from, more or less imposition, lying unnaturalness?</td><td valign="top" align="right"><font size="-2"><a name="2"><i>   2</i></a></font></td></tr> </table>   <table align="CENTER" width="601" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#ffffff"> <tr><td><br></td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER" valign="BOTTOM" height="25"><font size="-1"><a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/">CONTENTS</a> · <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/br/229.html">BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD</a></font></td></tr><tr><td><br></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#B1B1B1"><td height="1"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/horiz_bar602.gif" width="601" alt="" height="1"></td></tr> <tr><td><table width="601" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#ffffff"><tr><td align="LEFT" height="25" width="1%" valign="MIDDLE"><a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/3019.html"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/lt.gif" border="0" width="8" height="17"></a></td> <td align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="-1">  <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/3019.html">PREVIOUS</a></font></td> <td align="RIGHT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="-1"><a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/3021.html">NEXT</a>  </font></td> <td align="RIGHT" width="1%" valign="MIDDLE"><a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/229/3021.html"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/gt.gif" border="0" width="8" height="17"></a></td></tr></table></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#B1B1B1"> <td height="1"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/horiz_bar602.gif" alt="" width="603" height="1"></td></tr>   <tr><td> </td></tr> <tr><td><table align="CENTER"> <tr><td align="CENTER">  <center> <form method="get" action="https://web.archive.org/web/20060614035943/http://www.google.com/custom" target="_top"> <table bgcolor="#ffffff"> <tr><td nowrap="nowrap" valign="top" align="left" height="32"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060614035943/http://www.google.com/"> <img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/include/Logo_25wht.gif" width="75" height="32" border="0" alt="Google" align="middle"></img></a> <input type="text" name="q" size="20" maxlength="255" value=""></input> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search"></input> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-5691076175788952"></input> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1"></input> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1"></input> <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1"></input> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;"></input> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en"></input> </td></tr></table> </form> </center>  </td></tr> </table></td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER" height="25" width="1%" valign="MIDDLE"><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size="-1">Click <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/bookstore/WhitmnW.html">here</a> to shop the <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/bookstore/WhitmnW.html">Bartleby Bookstore</a>.</font></td></tr> <tr bgcolor="#B1B1B1"> <td height="1"><img src="/web/20060614035943im_/http://www.bartleby.com/images/newsite/horiz_bar602.gif" alt="" width="603" height="1"></td></tr>  <tr valign="bottom" align="center"><td> <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/sv/welcome.html" target="_top"><font color="#0b074f" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Welcome</font></a> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">· <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/press/index.html" target="_top"><font color="#0b074f">Press</font></a> · <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/sv/advertising.html" target="_top"><font color="#0b074f">Advertising</font></a> · <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/link/" target="_top"><font color="#0b074f">Linking</font></a> · <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/sv/terms.html" target="_top"><font color="#0b074f">Terms of Use</font></a> · © 2005 <a href="/web/20060614035943/http://www.bartleby.com/" target="_top"><font color="#0b074f">Bartleby.com</font></a></font> </td></tr> <tr><td> </td></tr>  </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3" align="center"><tr><td align="center"><iframe src="https://web.archive.org/web/20060614035943if_/http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bartlebylibrary&o=1&p=40&l=ur1&category=holiday&banner=0K3GRKHPCV6NR4MMCMG2&f=ifr" width="120" height="60" scrolling="no" border="0" style="border:none;" frameborder="0"></iframe></td> <td align="center">   <center> <script language="JavaScript"> var bnum=new Number(Math.floor(99999999 * Math.random())+1); 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