Let me round off with an opinion or two, the result of my many years’ acquaintance. (If I slightly infringe the rule laid down at the beginning, to attempt no literary criticism, I hope the reader will excuse it.) Both Walt Whitman’s book and personal character need to be studied a long time and in the mass, and are not to be gauged by custom. I never knew a man who--for all he took an absorbing interest in politics, literature, and what is called “the world”--seemed to be so poised on himself alone. Dr. Drinkard, the Washington physician who attended him in his paralysis, wrote to the Philadelphia doctor into whose hands the case passed, saying among other things: “In his bodily organism, and in his constitution, tastes and habits, Whitman is the most _natural_ man I have ever met.” The primary foundation of the poet’s character, at the same time, was certainly spiritual. Helen Price, who knew him for fifteen years, pronounces him (in Dr. Bucke’s book) the most essentially religious person she ever knew. On this foundation was built up, layer by layer, the rich, diversified, concrete experience of his life, from its earliest years. Then his aim and ideal were not the technical literary ones. His strong individuality, wilfulness, audacity, with his scorn of convention and rote, unquestionably carried him far outside the regular metes and bounds. No wonder there are some who refuse to consider his “Leaves” as “literature.” It is perhaps only because he was brought up a printer, and worked during his early years as newspaper and magazine writer, that he put his expression in typographical form, and made a regular book of it, with lines, leaves and binding. During his last years the poet, who was almost seventy-three years old when he died, was in a state of half-paralysis. He got out of doors regularly in fair weather, much enjoyed the Delaware River, was a great frequenter of the Camden and Philadelphia Ferry, and was occasionally seen sauntering along Chestnut or Market Streets in the latter city. He had a curious sort of public sociability, talking with black and white, high and low, male and female, old and young, of all grades. He gave a word or two of friendly recognition, or a nod or smile, to each. Yet he was by no means a marked talker or logician anywhere. I know an old book-stand man who always spoke of him as Socrates. But in one respect the likeness was entirely deficient. Whitman never argued, disputed, or held or invited a cross-questioning bout with any human being. Through his paralysis, poverty, the embezzlement of book-agents (1874-1876), the incredible slanders and misconstructions that followed him through life, and the quite complete failure of his book from a worldly and financial point of view, his splendid fund of personal equanimity and good spirits remained inexhaustible, and was to the end of his life amid bodily helplessness and a most meagre income, vigorous and radiant as ever.