“Take him, all in all, he was the most lovable man I ever knew; and as a mere specimen of physical manhood he was a joy to look at. A little above the medium height, he was perfectly proportioned and of a sinewy, symmetrical figure. His hair was raven black, wavy, and glossy as satin. His skin was alight olive, slightly tinged with red, and his features were regular, somewhat prominent, and exceedingly flexible, showing an organization of a highly sensitive character. But his eyes were what riveted the observer’s attention. Mr. Longfellow told me they were the finest type of the Oriental, but I never saw eyes--Eastern or Western--to compare with them in luminous power. They were full, large, and dark, with overhanging lashes; but for the life of me I cannot tell their precise color. At times they seemed a deep blue, at other times an intense black, and then they were balls of fire, as he was stirred by some strong emotion. They spoke the ready language of a deep, strong, fiery, yet chastened, nature as it was moved by love, joy, sorrow or indignation.”[47] Piatt remarks upon his “Oriental look and manner,” and all who knew him were impressed by his distinguished appearance and grave courtesy. In 1858 New Albany became interested in spiritualism. Willson fell under the spell and began a study of the subject. Piatt says that Willson “soon abandoned the professors, but retained until his death a serious spiritual theory or faith of his own. He believed--and he was absolutely honest and sincere, I am sure, in his faith--that the spirits of the dead could, and at times do, have communication with the living.” Willson seems not to have had an active occupation at any time. His father had been successful in business, and dying at New Albany in 1859, left a comfortable fortune to his children. The poet lived by himself for a number of years, at New Albany, in a small house where he surrounded himself with books and led the life of a student. Louisville is directly across the Ohio from New Albany, and Willson was known to a few of the literary people on the Kentucky side, particularly to Prentice. The approach of the Civil War aroused in him a deep interest in its great issues, and he wrote editorials in support of the Union cause for Prentice’s _Journal_. He began in the first year of the war, and concluded later, his poem “In State,” which, in spite of its occasional vagueness and its despairing view of the political situation, is written in an effective stanza and is splendidly imaginative. He gloomily assumed that the nation was dead--hence his personification of it as a prone figure lying “in state,” and he brings the rulers of Europe to look upon it,-- “The winds have tied the drifted snow Around the face and chin; and lo, The sceptred giants come and go And shake their shadowy crowns and say: ‘We always feared it would be so!’”