188 BIRDS AND POETS 
ward in his literary expression; in fact, how the 
one was a living commentary upon the other. After 
the test of time, nothing goes home lke the test of 
actual intimacy; and to tell me that Whitman is not 
a large, fine, fresh, magnetic personality, making 
you love him, and want always to be with him, 
were to tell me that my whole past life is a decep- 
tion, and all the impression of my perceptives a 
fraud. JI have studied him as I have studied the 
birds, and have found that the nearer I got to him 
the more I saw. Nothing about a first-class man 
can be overlooked; he is to be studied in every fea- 
ture, —in his physiology and phrenology, in the 
shape of his head, in his brow, his eye, his glance, 
his nose, his ear (the ear is as indicative in a man 
as in a horse), his voice. In Whitman all these 
things are remarkably striking and suggestive. His 
face exhibits a rare combination of harmony and 
sweetness with strength, — strength like the vaults 
and piers of the Roman architecture. Sculptor 
never carved a finer ear or a more imaginative brow. 
Then his heavy-lidded, absorbing eye, his sympa- 
thetic voice, and the impression which he makes of 
starting from the broad bases of the universal human 
traits. (If Whitman was grand in his physical and 
perfect health, I think him far more so now (1877), 
cheerfully mastering paralysis, penury, and old age.) 
You know, on seeing the man and becoming familiar 
with his presence, that, if he achieve the height at 
all, it will be from where every man stands, and not 
from some special genius, or exceptional and adven- 
