“In the same year [1864] came another great friendship. He made the acquaintance of a stalwart sailor named Joseph Fletcher, commonly called Posh. It was at Lowestoft that he was found, where Fitzgerald used, as he wrote in 1850, ‘to wander about the shore at night longing for some fellow to accost me who might give some promise of filling up a very vacant place in my heart.’ Posh had seen the melancholy figure wandering about, and years after, when Fitz used to ask him why he had not been merciful enough to speak to him, Posh would reply that he had not thought it becoming. Posh was, in Fitzgerald’s own words, ‘a man of the finest Saxon type, with a complexion, _vif, mâle et flamboyant_, blue eyes, a nose less than Roman, more than Greek, and strictly auburn hair that woman might sigh to possess.’ He was too, according to Fitz, ‘a man of simplicity of soul, justice of thought, tenderness of nature, a gentleman of Nature’s grandest type.’ Fitz became deeply devoted to this big-handed, soft-hearted, grave fellow, then 24 years of age.” _Ibid_, ch. iii. FOOTNOTES [1] This curious oracle seems purposely to confuse the singular and plural. [2] Digression in praise of the political administration of the Pisistratidæ. [3] “For the two men lived together, and had their possessions in common.” _Iamblichus, de Vita Pythagoræ_ bk. i. ch. 33. [4] “For now we see by means of a mirror darkly (lit. enigmatically); but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” _1 Cor._ xiii. 12. [5] Seen within the flower we call Larkspur. [6] The Sun. [7] Benecke, _Woman in Greek Poetry_, traces a germ of this romance even in Greek days. [8] “De la Servitude Volontaire”. [9] As Whitman in this connection (like Tennyson in connection with _In Memoriam_) is sure to be accused of morbidity, it may be worth while to insert the following note from _In re Walt Whitman_, p. 115, “Dr. Drinkard in 1870, when Whitman broke down from rupture of a small blood-vessel in the brain, wrote to a Philadelphia doctor detailing Whitman’s case, and stating that he was a man ‘with the most natural habits, bases, and organisation he had ever seen.’” Index INDEX _Achilles and Patroclus_, 45, 68 _et seq._, 74, 85 _Æschylus, on Achilles_, 72, 73 _African Customs_, 4, 5, 6, 14 _Agathon, epigram to, by Plato_, 79 _Agesilaus and Lysander_, 17 _Albania, Customs_, 20, 21 _Alexander the Great and Hephæstion_, 188 _Amis and Amile, story of_, 106 _Anacreon, epigram_, 77; _to Bathyllus_, 77 _Anne, Princess, and Lady Churchill_, 146 _Anselm’s letters to brother Monks_, 104; _to Lanfranc_, 104; _to Gondulph_, 105 _Apollo and Hyacinth_, 88 _Arabia, customs_, 12, 109, 119 _Archidamus and Cleonymus_, 17 _Aristophanes, speech of_, 51 _et seq._ _Aristotle quoted_, 185