Much of the service, however, was entirely his own--if one can ever call love one's own, which all things seem to offer to the soul that has learnt to receive from all. In cases of heart sickness, and the despondency and despair that come to the lonely man lying helpless among callous or unimaginative and therefore indifferent persons, Walt's quick divination of the real trouble made him the best of nurses; and he took care to remember all the cases that came under his notice, innumerable as they must have seemed. He kept a strict record of his patients and their individual needs in little blood and tear-stained notebooks, many of which are still extant.[397] This is an additional proof of that concrete definiteness of observation which distinguishes his habit of mind from the love of merely nebulous generalisation of which he is sometimes accused. One is bound to respect the intuitions of a mind which has so large a grasp of detail. Beginning characteristically with the Brooklyn lads whom he found scattered about the several hospitals, and who claimed his attention by the natural right of old acquaintanceship, his work grew like a rolling snowball, as he made his way from bed to bed; for he was always quick to feel the needs of a stranger. Before long he realised that there was not one among the thousand tents and wards in which he might not profitably have expended his whole vital energy. As it was, however, he tramped from hospital to hospital, faithfully going his rounds as far afield as the Fairfax Seminary. And in those days the Washington streets were heavy walking in the wet weather; for Pennsylvania Avenue was the only one that was yet paved,[398] and then boasted nothing but the cobble-stones, which still serve in the quaint streets across the Potomac. He walked a great deal. The open air relieved the tension of the wards, which at times was almost unbearable. Though his presence and affection saved many a lad's life, there must have been many more that died; and the tragedy of these deaths, and the terrible suffering that often preceded them, bit into his soul. Fascinated though he was by his employment, and delighting in it while he was strong and well,[399] the strength of his great heart was often as helpless as a little child's; and his whole nature staggered under the blows, which he felt even in his physical frame. He was literally an "amateur"; he could never take a detached or "professional" attitude towards his patients, for he knew that what they needed from him was love; their suffering became his suffering, and something died in him when they died. The following passage, written when the war itself was drawing to a close, indicates the character of much of his work, and the spirit in which it was done:--