ed the hospitals,
reading the Bible, distributing clean clothes, or apples, or tobacco; a
patient, helpful, reverend man, full of kind speeches.

His memoranda of this period are almost bewildering to read. From one
point of view they seem those of a district visitor; from another, they
look like the formless jottings of an artist in the picturesque. More
than one woman, on whom I tried the experiment, immediately claimed the
writer for a fellow-woman. More than one literary purist might identify
him as a shoddy newspaper correspondent without the necessary faculty of
style. And yet the story touches home; and if you are of the weeping
order of mankind, you will certainly find your eyes filled with tears,
of which you have no reason to be ashamed. There is only one way to
characterise a work of this order, and that is to quote. Here is a
passage from a letter to a mother, unknown to Whitman, whose son died in
hospital:--

"Frank, as far as I saw, had everything requisite in surgical
treatment, nursing, etc. He had watches much of the time. He was so
good and well-behaved, and affectionate, I myself liked him very
much. I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him,
and he liked to have me--liked to put out his arm and lay his hand on
my knee--would keep it so a long while. Toward the last he was more
restless and flighty at night--often fancied himself with his
regiment--by his talk sometimes seem'd as if his feelings were hurt
by being blamed by his officers for something he was entirely
innocent of--said 'I never in my life was thought capable of such a
thing, and never was.' At other times he would fancy himself talking
as it seem'd to children or such like, his relatives, I suppose, and
giving them good advice; would talk to them a long while. All the
time he was out of his head not one single bad word, or thought, or
idea escaped him. It was remark'd that many a man's conversation in
his senses was not half so good as Frank's delirium.

"He was perfectly willing to die--he had become very weak, and had
suffer'd a good deal, and was perfectly resign'd, poor boy. I do not
know his past life, but I feel as if it must have been good. At any
rate what I saw of him here, under the most trying circumstances,
with a painful wound, and among strangers, I can say that he behaved
so brave, so composed, and so sweet and affectionate, it could n