ared, he said, "Americans abroad may now come home: unto us a man is
born."

President Lincoln, standing one day during the war before a window in the
White House, saw Whitman slowly saunter by. He followed him with his
eyes, and, turning, said to those about him, "Well, _he_ looks like a
_man_."

"Meeter of savage and gentleman on equal terms."

During Whitman's Western tour in 1879 or '80, at some point in Kansas, in
company with several well-known politicians and government officials, he
visited a lot of Indians who were being held as prisoners. The sheriff
told the Indians who the distinguished men were who were about to see
them, but the Indians paid little attention to them as, one after the
other, the officials and editors passed by them. Behind all came Whitman.
The old chief looked at him steadily, then extended his hand and said,
"How!" All the other Indians followed, surrounding Whitman, shaking his
hand and making the air melodious with their "Hows." The incident
evidently pleased the old poet a good deal.

VIII

Whitman was of large mould in every way, and of bold, far-reaching
schemes, and is very sure to fare better at the hands of large men than of
small. The first and last impression which his personal presence always
made upon one was of a nature wonderfully gentle, tender, and benignant.
His culture, his intellect, was completely suffused and dominated by his
humanity, so that the impression you got from him was not that of a
learned or a literary person, but of fresh, strong, sympathetic human
nature,--such an impression, I fancy, only fuller, as one might have got
from Walter Scott. This was perhaps the secret of the attraction he had,
for the common, unlettered people and for children. I think that even his
literary friends often sought his presence less for conversation than to
bask in his physical or psychical sunshine, and to rest upon his boundless
charity. The great service he rendered to the wounded and homesick
soldiers in the hospitals during the war came from his copious endowment
of this broad, sweet, tender democratic nature. He brought father and
mother to them, and the tonic and cheering atmosphere of simple,
affectionate home life.

In person Whitman was large and tall, above six feet, with a breezy,
open-air look. His temperament was sanguine; his voice was a tender
baritone. The dominant impression he made was that of something fresh and
clean. I remember the first time