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[O]n visiting their [Thayer and Eldridge, the publishers of the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass] shop one day, . . . I met for the first and only time Walt Whitman. He was there to consult them about the publication of his poems, and I saw before me, sitting on the counter, a handsome, burly man, heavily built, and not looking, to my gymnasium-trained eye, in really good condition for athletic work. I perhaps felt a little prejudiced against him from having read his "Leaves of Grass" on a voyage, in the early stages of seasickness,—a fact which doubtless increased for me the intrinsic unsavoriness of certain passages. But the personal impression made on me by the poet was not so much of manliness as of Boweriness, if I may coin the phrase; indeed rather suggesting Sidney Lanier's subsequent vigorous phrase, "a dandy roustabout." This passing impression did not hinder me from thinking of Whitman with hope and satisfaction at a later day when regiments were to be raised for the war, when the Bowery seemed the very place to enlist them, and even "Billy Wilson's Zouaves" were hailed with delight. When, however, after waiting a year or more, Whitman decided that the proper post for him was hospital service, I confess to feeling a reaction, which was rather increased than diminished by his profuse celebration of his own labors in that direction. Hospital attendance is a fine thing, no doubt, yet if all men, South and North, had taken the same view of their duty that Whitman held, there would have been no occasion for hospitals on either side.
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