and beard lent to its massiveness a curious grace and delicacy. The owner of that head could not but be endowed with force, sagacity, humor, and the sense of justice. It expressed, indeed, his essential quality equanimity; for there were two men in him he of the chin and jaw, a man of action and tenacity, and he of the nose and brow, the man of speculation and impersonality; yet these two were so curiously balanced and blended that there was no harsh ungraceful conflict. And what made this equanimity so memorable was the fact that both his power of action and his power of speculation were of high quality. He was not a commonplace person content with a little of both. He wanted and had wanted throughout life, if one may judge by records, a good deal of both, ever demanding with one half of him strong and continuous action, and with the other half, high and clean thought and behavior. The desire for the best both in material and spiritual things remained with him through life. He felt things deeply; and but for his strange balance, and a yearning for inward peace which never seems to have deserted him, his ship might well have gone down in tragedy. CHARLES CHEERYBLE 1 CHARLES DICKENS He was a sturdy old fellow in a broad-skirted, blue coat, made pretty large, to fit easily, and with no particular waist; his bulky legs clothed in drab breeches and high gaiters, and his head protected by a low-crowned broad-brimmed white hat, such as a wealthy grazier might wear. He wore his coat buttonless; and his dimpled double chin rested in the folds of a white neckerchief - not one of your stiff-starched, apoplectic cravats, but a good, easy, old-fashioned white neck-cloth that a man might go to bed in and be none the worse for. But what principally attracted the attention of Nicholas was the old 1 From Nicholas Nickleby. gentleman's eye, never was such a clear, twinkling, honest, merry, happy eye as that. And there he stood, looking a little upward, with one hand thrust into the breast of his coat, and the other playing with the old-fashioned gold watch chain; his head thrown a little on one side, and his hat a little more on one side than his head (but that was evidently accident, not his ordinary way of wearing it), with such a pleasant smile playing about his mouth, and such a comical expression of mingled slyness, simplicity, kind-heartedness, and good humor lighting up his jolly old face that Nicholas would have been content to have stood there, and looked at him until evening, and to have forgotten, meanwhile, that there was such a thing as a soured mind or a crabbed countenance to be met with in the whole wide world. . HAROLD SKIMPOLE 1 CHARLES DICKENS He was a little bright creature, with a rather large head; but a delicate face, and a sweet voice, and there was a perfect charm in him. All he said was so free from effort and spontaneous, and was said with such a captivating gayety, that it was fascinating to hear him talk. Being of a more slender figure than Mr. Jarndyce, and having a richer complexion, with browner hair, he looked younger. Indeed, he had more the appearance, in all respects, of a damaged young man, than a well-preserved elderly one. There was an easy negligence in his manner, and even in his dress (his hair carelessly disposed, and his neckerchief loose and flowing, as I have seen artists paint their own portraits), which I could not separate from the idea of a romantic youth who had undergone some unique process of depreciation. It struck me as being not at all like the manner or appearance of a man who had advanced in life by the usual road of years, cares, and experiences. 1 From Bleak House. MR. GEORGE 1 CHARLES DICKENS He is a swarthy brown man of fifty; well-made and goodlooking; with crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is, that he sits forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside. His step too is measured and heavy, and would go well with a weighty clash and jingle of He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his broad brown hand upon it, is to the same effect. Altogether one might guess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time. spurs. AUNT CLARA 2 ARNOLD BENNETT AUNT CLARA was a handsome woman. She had been called but not by men whose manners and code she would have approved "a damned fine woman." Her age was about forty-two, which at that period, in a woman's habit of mind, was the equivalent of about fifty to-day. Her latest photograph was considered to be very successful. It showed her standing behind a velvet chair and leaning her large but still shapely bust slightly over the chair. Her forearms, ruffled and braceleted, lay along the fringed back of the chair, and from one negligent hand depended a rose. A heavy curtain came downwards out of nothing into the picture, and the end of it 1 From Bleak House. 2 From Clayhanger. E. P. Dutton and Company. Reprinted by permission of the author. lay coiled and draped on the seat of the chair. The great dress was of slate-colored silk, with sleeves tight to the elbow and thence, from a ribbon bow, broadening to a wide, triangular climax that revealed quantities of lace at the wrists. The pointed cords of the sleeves were picked out with squares of velvet. A short and highly ornamental fringed and looped flounce waved grandly out behind from the waist to the level of the knees; and the stomacher recalled the ornamentation of the flounce; and both the stomacher and the flounce gave contrasting value to the severe plainness of the skirt, designed to emphasize the quality of the silk. Round the neck was a lace collarette to match the furniture of the wrists, and the broad ends of the collarette were crossed on the bosom and held by a large jet brooch. Above that you saw a fine regular face, with a firm hard mouth and a very straight nose and dark eyebrows; small ears weighted with heavy jet ear-rings. The photograph could not render the clear perfection of Aunt Clara's rosy skin; she had the color and the flashing eye of a girl. But it did justice to her really magnificent black hair. This hair was all her own, and the coiffure seemed as ample as a judge's wig. From the low forehead the hair was parted exactly in the middle for about two inches; then plaited bands crossed and re-crossed the scalp in profusion, forming behind a pattern exceedingly complicated, and down either side of the head, now behind the ear, now hiding it, now resting on the shoulder, now hanging clear of them, fell long multitudinous glossy curls. These curls one of them in the photograph reached as far as the stomacher - could not have been surpassed in Bursley. She was a woman of terrific vitality. Her dead sister had been nothing in comparison with her. She had a glorious digestion, and was the envy of her brother-in-law who suffered much from biliousness - because she could eat with perfect impunity hot buttered toast and raw celery in large quantities. Further, she had independent means, and no children to cause anxieties. Yet she was always, as the phrase went, "bearing up," or, as another phrase went, "leaning hard." Frances Ridley Havergal was her favorite author, and Frances Ridley Havergal's little book, Lean Hard, was kept on her dressingtable. (The girls, however, averred that she never opened it.) Aunt Clara's spiritual life must be imagined as a continual, almost physical leaning on Christ. Nevertheless she never complained, and she was seldom depressed. Her desire, and her achievement, was to be bright, to take everything cheerfully, to look obstinately on the best side of things; and to instil this religion into others. "THAT'S Bud Tilden, the worst of the bunch," said the jail warden the warden with the sliced ear and the gorilla hands. "Reminds me of a cat'mount I tried to tame once, only he's twice as ugly." As he spoke, he pointed to a prisoner in a slouch hat clinging halfway up the steel bars of his cage, his head thrust through as far as his cheeks would permit, his legs spread apart like the letter A. "Up in the Kentucky mountains, back o' Bug Holler. Laid for the carrier one night, held him up with a gun, pulled him off his horse, slashed the bottom out o' the mail bag with his knife, took what letters he wanted, and lit off in the woods, cool as a chunk o' ice. Oh! I tell ye, he's no sardine; you kin see that without my tellin' ye. They'll railroad him, sure." "When was he arrested?" "Last month - come down in the November batch. The dep'ties had a circus 'fore they got the irons on him. Caught him in a clearin' 'bout two miles back o' the Holler. He was 1 From The Under Dog. Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted by permission. |