Describing Shoghi Effendi as he appeared to the outer eye of a pilgrim

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.

Shoghi Effendi was a little taller than Baha’u’llah but shorter than ‘Abdu’l-Baha – a pilgrim’s first impression

I was aware that each pilgrim, on their first evening in Haifa, would enter the dining room first - and alone - to be greeted by the Guardian. I was well prepared for this but, when the time came, felt a ‘rush' of anxiety and trepidation – unsure, I guess, of how I would feel, being alone with the one person whom all Bahá'ís longed to meet. As I entered the dining room and saw, for the first time, the short but stocky figure of the Guardian, standing beside the dining table, dressed in a camel-coloured overcoat (it was mid-winter and he has just come in from the cold), with the Turkish fez which he habitually wore at an angle on his head. But it was the smile and the eyes that entranced me – and as he embraced me, Persian style, which I was still unaccustomed to, I found I had to reach down to respond to his embrace and I realized how short in stature the Guardian was. I knew from my reading at that time that Bahá'u'lláh was small in stature – and all pilgrims became aware of that when viewing the couches He slept on in the various rooms He occupied in 'Akká and Bahji, but had not been aware that the Guardian was also so short. I learned later that ‘Abdu'l-Bahá was the tallest of the three, that Bahá'u'lláh was very short in stature, and the Guardian was only a little taller – between the two in height. Initially it was quite a shock but, after that first moment, the Guardian always seemed so tall, whether standing or sitting (which was how the Western pilgrims usually saw him) – the impact of his person was such that physical height did not matter, did not even register, as one was overwhelmed by his spiritual stature which seemed to tower above all else. 

- Bill Washington  (‘Recollections of Pilgrimage: Nine Days with the Guardian in 1957’)

An example of Baha’u’llah guiding the Guardian

One evening during their [Mr. and Mrs. Featherstone’s] pilgrimage, the Guardian had sent a message to the pilgrims to begin dinner and he would join them a little later. They did so and during the meal, the Guardian came in, sat down and, before commencing to eat, as though he could not hold back the news any longer, burst out with an announcement of a series of changes he was planning to make to the administration of the Faith, including an extension of the institution of the Hands of the Cause who would have ‘deputies' (the Auxiliary Board members) and other developments. Suddenly the Guardian paused, and Rúhíyyih Khánum said, "But, Shoghi Effendi, you didn't say anything about this before." Perhaps realising the impact these sudden and far-reaching announcements were having on the pilgrims and the others at the dinner table, the Guardian bowed his head and replied, very softly: "I did not know before this evening – I am under the guidance of Bahá'u'lláh." All these new developments had come into his mind as a ready-made plan, through the guidance he was promised by the Master. This seems to be the way the Guardian operated. 

(Related by Hand of the Cause Collis Featherstone about his pilgrimage in 1953, quoted by Bill Washington concerning his own pilgrimage in 1957: ‘Recollections of Pilgrimage: Nine Days with the Guardian in 1957’)