unless you are suffused with truth, do not dare to meddle with goodness;
in a word, unless you are suffused with truth, wisdom, goodness, and love,
abandon the hope that the ages will accept you as an artist."
==

Thus was it true, as was said of his work by his associate,
Dr. Wm. Hand Browne, that "one thread of purpose runs through it all.
This thread is found in his fervid love for his fellow-men,
and his never ceasing endeavors to kindle an enthusiasm
for beauty, purity, nobility of life, which he held it the poet's first duty
to teach and to exemplify." And so there came into his verse
a solemn, worshipful element, dominating it everywhere,
and giving loftiness to its beauty. For he was the democrat whom he described
in contrast to Whitman's mere brawny, six-footed, open-shirted hero,
whose strength was only that of the biceps:

==
"My democrat, the democrat whom I contemplate with pleasure,
the democrat who is to write or to read the poetry of the future,
may have a mere thread for his biceps, yet he shall be strong enough
to handle hell; he shall play ball with the earth;
and albeit his stature may be no more than a boy's,
he shall still be taller than the great redwoods of California;
his height shall be the height of great resolution,
and love, and faith, and beauty, and knowledge, and subtle meditation;
his head shall be forever among the stars."
==

This standard he could not forget in his judgments of artists.
There was something in Whitman which "refreshed him like harsh salt spray,"