Each of the following passages may be plausibly criticized by some who conclude that it contains a fallacy, but each may be defended by some who deny that the argument is fallacious. Discuss the merits of the argument in each passage, and explain why you conclude that it does (or does not) contain a fallacy.

Thomas Carlyle said of Walt Whitman that he thinks he is a big poet because he comes from a big country.

—Alfred Kazin, “The Haunted Chamber,”
The New Republic , 23 June 1986