I will try to describe him [Shoghi Effendi] for you as he appears to the outer eye. Now I know why there have been no adequate descriptions of him by the Pilgrims. It is completely unimportant. It is describing a mirror when you can't behold the sun that shines in it. It is describing a symphony by saying it has four movements, when you can't express the exhilaration and joy that its music stirs in you. This is more true of the Guardian. His is a music unique to the planet. It is a spiritual language which transcends even a musical language. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá said there was a spiritual language as different from our language as ours is from the cries of animals. This is the language of the presence of the guardian. It cannot be expressed, it must be experienced; what is written here is but the shadow of the reality. Only a pilgrimage of your own will clothe it in flesh. If you have seen him, you will understand this.
The Guardian, as I remember him, is short in stature. His hair is dark, greying on the sides. He is of medium to dark complexion. He has dark eyes that seem to become a shade of the reality. He is of medium to dark complexion. He has dark eyes that seem to become a shade lighter when they are most animated, as though they burned with some inner fire. His features are regular. He is smooth shaven except for a dark moustache. There is an energetic quality about his person, even when at rest. He is very sturdy. I judge this by the firmness I felt when he embraced me. He has very small, slender hands which are shapely and expressive. All of his gestures are extremely graceful. He wore a rust colored topcoat over his inner clothes all during the time I was there. His tie was always brown. He wears a slender gold Bahá'í ring on the second finger of his right hand. He wears a black fez with a black button in the center of the top. Almost every evening he brought some new cable, drawing, or document with him to the table. Frequently he discusses the work of the Faith with the Hands and the members of the International Council. The dinner table is long and narrow. It seats ten comfortably. The latest pilgrim used to sit at the head of the table. Now Mason Remey sits there. The Guardian sits on his right, and the latest pilgrim on Mason's left, opposite Shoghi Effendi. Ruhiyyih Khanum sits on the Guardian's immediate right. The pilgrim is only three feet away, yet a world away from him.
- Bill Sears
(‘Pilgrimage to Haifa’, 1954)