On March the 26th, 1884,[656] he left his brother's house, and removed to a little two-story cottage on Mickle Street, near by. Here he installed himself, at first with an elderly workman and his wife, and afterwards under the more efficient _régime_ of Mrs. Mary Davis, a buxom New Jersey widow of comfortable presence, who brought into the house that homely atmosphere which Whitman had so long been seeking.[657] Downstairs, in the little front parlour, he carried on what remained to him of his own publishing--the old autograph editions which he had not entrusted to Mr. McKay; and over it, upstairs, was his bedroom, which he liked to compare with a big ship's cabin. In the backyard were lilacs, which he loved; and a shady tree stood in the side-walk in front. He found his little "shack," as he called it, pleasant and restful, and his own. He was not much worried by the rasping church choir and the bells, which jangled cruelly loud for such sensitive hearing every Sunday; nor by the neighbourhood of a guano factory, which was noticeable enough to the most ordinary nose.[658] Here his friends from far and near were frequent visitors, Dr. Bucke, John Burroughs and Peter Doyle among them; and in June came Edward Carpenter from England on his second visit.[659] * * * * * Carpenter had now issued his slender green _Towards Democracy_, that strange, prophetic, intimate book, so unlike all others, even the _Leaves_ which it most resembles. It was seven years since the two men had met, and the older had grown thinner and more weary-looking. He had not been worsted in the long struggle with time and illness, but they had left their mark upon his body. The visitor renewed his first impressions of that complex personality; felt again the wistful affection mingled with the contradictiousobstinacy; recognised the same watchful caution and keen perception, "a certain artfulness," and the old "wild hawk look" of his untameable spirit; but, beneath all, the wonderful unfathomed tenderness. Whitman manifestly had his moods, "lumpishly immovable" at times, at times deliberately inaccessible. He took a certain wilful pleasure in denial, for the quality of "cussedness" was strong in him. And his friends admired his magnificent "No," issuing from him naked and unashamed, just as mere acquaintances dreaded it. But in other moods he was all generosity, and you knew in him a man who had given himself body, mind and spirit to Love, never contented to give less than all.