
“Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch. I am still bathing in the cheer he radiated.”
Conversation with Whitman (16 May 1888) as quoted in With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906) http://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/disciples/traubel/WWWiC/1/med.00001.49.html by Horace Traubel, Vol. I <!-- p. 166 -->
Context: There was a kind of labor agitator here today—a socialist, or something like that: young, a rather beautiful boy — full of enthusiasms: the finest type of the man in earnest about himself and about life. I was sorry to see him come: I am somehow afraid of agitators, though I believe in agitation: but I was more sorry to see him go than come. Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch. I am still bathing in the cheer he radiated. … Cheer! cheer! Is there anything better in this world anywhere than cheer — just cheer? Any religion better? — any art? Just cheer!