This high seriousness of hers made her the readier to appreciate a poet who, almost alone among Americans, has bared his man's heart to his readers, careless of the cheap ridicule of those smart-witted cynics whom modern education and modern morality have multiplied till they are almost as numerous as the sands of the sea. She was a little more than forty when she first read _Leaves of Grass_ and wrote those letters to W. M. Rossetti in which she attested her appreciation of their purpose and power.[574] It was no light thing for a woman to publish such a declaration of faith; and in her own phrase,[575] she felt herself a second Lady Godiva, going in the daylight down the public way, naked, not in body but in soul, for the good cause. She was convinced that her ride was necessary; for men would remain blind to the glory of Whitman's message until a woman dared the shame and held its glory up to them. And what she did, she did less for men than for their wives and mothers, upon whom the shadow of their shame-in-themselves had fallen. Mr. Rossetti has described[576] her as a woman of good port, in fullest possession of herself, never fidgetty, and never taken unawares; warm-hearted and courageous, with full, dark, liquid eyes, which were at the same time alive with humour and vivacity, quick to detect every kind of humbug, but wholly free from cynicism. Her face was not only expressive of her character, but "full charged with some message" which her lips seemed ever about to utter. Her considerable intellectual force was in happy harmony with her domestic qualities, and filled her home-life with interest. Such was the woman who, in November, 1876, at the age of forty-eight, brought her family to Philadelphia, in order that one of the daughters might study medicine at Girard College; and in whose home, near the college grounds, Whitman henceforward, for two or three years,[577] spent a considerable part of his time. The relationship of these two noble souls seems to have been comparable with that which united Michael Angelo and Vittoria Colonna, and they were at a similar time of life. * * * * * This, the Centennial year, was filled with thoughts and celebrations of American independence; among which we may recall the Exposition in Philadelphia--where throughout the summer, Whitman had been a frequent visitor--and the Centennial edition of his works. He had also celebrated the occasion by sitting for his bust to a young sculptor, in an improvised studio on Chestnut Street. The weather was too hot for a coat; and in his white shirt sleeves he would, at the artist's request, read his poems aloud with naïve delight, which rose to a climax when the sound of applause from a group of young fellows on the stairs without, crowned his efforts. "So you like it, do you?" he cried to them; "well, I rather enjoyed that myself."[578]