grave, and the end comes as a relief. A great
soul may be cheerful, or at least serene, in all circumstances; but
there is neither pleasure nor dignity in living on as the ghost of one's
self.

Few superber specimens of physical manhood than Walt Whitman's have
appeared on this planet. "He looks like a man," said Abraham Lincoln,
as his gaze followed the poet past a window of the White House. Whitman
stood six feet two, his limbs and torso were splendid, and his head was
magnificently proportioned. His vitality must have been wonderful, and
his health was absolutely perfect until after the War, during which he
too assiduously nursed the sick and wounded, to the lasting detriment of
his phenomenal constitution. The flame of his life burnt on for another
thirty years, but his strength was seriously undermined, and he is far
better entitled to be called a martyr than many who have more cheaply
earned the distinction.

Walt Whitman's great personality can hardly be disputed. He impressed
himself as something colossal on all who came into close contact with
him. The magnetism of his presence in the military hospitals was more
sanative than the doctors' physic. Men, women, and children felt glad
and satisfied in his company. His large, frank, healthy nature radiated
a perpetual benediction. One who knew him intimately has said that he
never saw upon Whitman's features any trace of mean or evil passions.
The man was thoroughly wholesome. Even his occasionally free utterances
on sexuality are only sins against decorum. They do not violate nature.
He never spoke on this subject with the slobbery grin of the voluptuary,
or the leer of prurience. He was at such moments simply unreticent.
Meaning no harm, he suspected none. In this respect he belonged to a
less self-conscious antiquity, when nothing pertaining to man was common
or unclean, and even the worship of the powers of generation was not
without dignity and solemnity.

Some of the foremost Englishmen of our time have acknowledged Whitman's
greatness and sanity--notably Carlyle, Ruskin, and Tennyson. Mr.
Swinburne is the only one who has unsaid his praise.

Tennyson's intimacy with Whitman--always through correspondence--was
simply beautiful. A superficial reader of human nature might have
inquired what they had in common--the rough, amorphous American poet,
and the exquisite English poet, a flower of millenniums of culture. But
there is something deeper than form. It i